Self-proclaimed Lord Brett McLean has claimed his late mother’s £300,000 house after he said she left him in order to look after her parrot and parakeet. McLean’s step-siblings took him to court to force splitting the inheritance he received, including the house and the rest of his mother’s wealth.
However, the court found in his favour. Ever since Maureen Mclean passed in 2019, McLean has been in dispute over his mother’s inheritance.
The will was changed 11 days before she died, with changes including the removal of all the step-siblings. Prior to this, it was stated that the inheritance was to be split equally.
In 2017, Maureen McLean and her husband, Reginald McLean, made wills entitling all four siblings, Sean McLean, Ian McLean, Lorraine Pomeroy and Brett McLean, to an equal share of the inheritance. They then informed all the siblings through letters of these intentions.
It was told in court that Reginald “trusted his wife implicitly” and said there was “no way” she would exclude his children from the inheritance after he passed.
However, in 2019 she changed her will to leave all the inheritance to her titled son.
The other siblings argued that the will written in 2017 was “mutual in nature with Reginald and Maureen expressly agreeing that neither would revoke or alter the terms of the wills made”. Their lawyer, Guy Holland, stated:
“It is apparent and should be inferred from the facts of this case that there was a contractual arrangement, whether express or implied, between Reginald and Maureen to the effect that neither would later change their will without informing the other or following the death of the other.”
However, Lord Brett in written submissions told the court that:
“The defendant’s mother left her entire estate to her only biological son – the defendant – so that he can continue to provide care for her green Amazonian orange-winged parrot and yellow and orange jenday (parakeet) and to continue providing housing for her son, as she knew the claimants all owned their own properties and would benefit from their mother’s will when the time arrives, and because her son did not have a property or a family because he had devoted his life to caring for his parents as he felt morally duty bound to do so.
The defendant’s mother left her entire estate to her only living dependant so he would have shelter and a place to live whilst remaining a caretaker to her parrot.
She would be able to continue providing for and protecting her son after she was gone.”
Judge Graeme Robertson stated that:
“The defendant says that, in contrast to the claimants, he does not have a partner or family of his own, nor his own real property.
He alleged that his mother wanted him to remain living in Seaside Road, where he could take care of her parrot and jenday after she had died.
These, he says, are reasons why Maureen would have wanted to leave the entirety of her and Reginald’s estate to him, and why she would not have agreed not to change her will.”
The judge found that Brett had:
“Ascribed opinions to his mother that I suspect are in fact his own, such as his statement that he ‘believed’ his mother wanted to provide for him, as someone who does not own property of his own, instead of the claimants, who do.
He was careful to express that idea as a ‘belief’ on his part, rather than as a report of something his mother had said.”
However, he concluded when the wills in 2017 were drawn up, not Maureen and Reginald were made aware that there was no guarantee one or the other would not change the will after one of them passed. He continued:
“Reginald and Maureen both made the 2017 wills on the basis of their trust in one another, and, as [the solicitor’s] evidence showed, they did not contemplate a situation where either would wish to change them.
In my judgment, therefore, there was no legally binding agreement between Maureen and Reginald that they would not revoke or change the 2017 wills without the consent of the other.
Maureen may have been morally bound, but she was not legally bound. Maureen was therefore legally entitled to change her will and make the 2019 will leaving her estate to Brett.”
