Sister sues ‘sicknote’ brother set to inherit mum’s £500,000 estate
A WOMAN is suing her “sicknote” brother after their 94-year-old mum left her £500,000 fortune to him.
Carol Scott, 77, left home at 19, building a career and family. But her sibling John Jones, 75, lived with their mum Muriel Jones his whole life until her death in April 2017.
Muriel had lived close to all her children in Surrey until 2012 when she uprooted and moved to Wiltshire with John and his wife Bronwen.
She drew up a new will, leaving everything to the retired builder and cutting out the rest of the family.
Now Carol, backed by other brother Peter, is suing John as beneficiary and executor of their mother’s will.
She claims John – “a sicknote who always had something wrong with him” and who was “looked after” by their mum for most of his adult life – “isolated” Muriel and used a “drip, drip” of influence which resulted in her leaving him her estate.
She claims her mum did not properly understand the contents of the will she signed. But lawyers for John say he and his wife cared for Muriel round the clock in her final years and that her last will reflected the fact that he was the only sibling who didn’t own a property. Judge Simon Monty KC, at Central London County Court, heard that Muriel and husband Ronald lived in Ripley, Surrey, close to Carol and Peter, until 2012. John and Bronwen had shared his parents’ home, the judge heard, with her moving in when they got married.
After Ronald’s death, it was decided that Muriel should sell her home, with Carol believing she was planning to get a bungalow nearby.
Two weeks before her house was sold, Muriel announced that she was moving 100 miles away to an “isolated” house near Trowbridge, Wilts, with John and Bronwen.
Carol told the judge she was “upset” by news of the move, which she put down to her brother John’s “influence” over their “frail” mum.
She said: “When she moved down to Wiltshire she was so remote. It was down a dirt track facing a field. She couldn’t get anywhere by herself. You couldn’t take a wheelchair down that long drive because of the potholes.”
Carol also criticised the lifestyle Muriel had with John in Wiltshire, living in a granny annexe to the main house. She said: “She didn’t have any heating when we went down.
“She was sat in a blanket with no fire on. She was in bed every day until the afternoon because the fire wasn’t lit until the afternoon.
“She used to say it was dirty and not very nice.”
The case continues.