Three animal charities have won a case at the Supreme Court against a woman cut out of her mother's will.
Heather
Ilott was awarded more than £160,000 by the Court of Appeal after her
mother Melita Jackson left most of her £486,000 estate to charities.
Mrs Ilott, from Hertfordshire, had originally been awarded £50,000, which was later tripled.
But animal charities challenged that increase and it has now been ruled she will receive only the original £50,000.
Mother-of-five
Mrs Ilott, from Great Munden, has no pension and was living on state
benefits when she was awarded £50,000 by a district judge in 2007.
The sum was increased to £160,000 by the appeal court in 2015.
The
Blue Cross, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Royal
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals argued that the appeal
judges "fell into error" when deciding to increase the maintenance
payout, which included £143,000 for Mrs Ilott to buy her housing
association home.
The court has heard that Mrs Ilott, who was an
only child, was rejected by her mother at the age of 17 after she left
home in 1978 to live with her boyfriend, Nicholas Ilott, whom she later
married.
She and her mother never reconciled their differences,
and when 70-year-old Mrs Jackson died in 2004, her will made no
provision for her daughter.
Mrs Ilott, who is in her 50s, made her
initial appeal under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and
Dependants) Act 1975 for "reasonable financial provision" from her
mother's estate.
The Act gives the child of a deceased parent the
right to apply for an order if a will does not make reasonable provision
for them.
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