He can’t inherit £500k... he’s rich already!
...say sisters at war with BA pilot brother over mum’s £1.5m will
A FORMER BA pilot is battling his sisters in court over their mother’s £1.5million will – because they claim he deserves less than them as he is already well off.
Chris Burgess, 65, was left a third of the total, £500,000, when his mother Freda died at 90 three years ago, as were his sisters Jennifer Penny, 69, and Catherine Kennard, 55.
But his siblings say their late father, Jim, and his widow always felt their successful, wealthy brother did not need the money. They also claim their mother was too frail and vulnerable to understand the will.
She signed it in January 2013 soon after her husband – a judge and distinguished lawyer – died in 2012 at 88.
Nine days before its completion, Mrs Burgess had also been in a fall, and her daughters claim this affected her understanding of what was going on and meant she ‘did not know and approve of the will’s contents’.
In addition, they say it was not witnessed properly.
Mrs Penny and Mrs Kennard insist the only relevant will was created in April 2012, leaving 20 per cent, or £300,000, to their
Court claim: Sisters Catherine Kennard and Jennifer Penny brother, and 40 per cent, or pertained in earlier years so £600,000, to each of them. that I felt I could benefit his sisters
Chris Burgess, who is married somewhat more.’ to a Brazilian he met when she Miss McQuail said their was a stewardess on a BA passenger mother, who lived at New jet he was flying, maintains Milton in Hampshire, told her that his parents had simply doctor that her son ‘took over always wanted their three her finances’ after the death of children to be ‘treated equally’. her husband.
At the High Court in London The barrister added that there yesterday, his sisters’ barrister, had been no family discussion Katherine McQuail, quoted before the 2013 will was finalised, from a document their late saying the court ‘ should father had written, in which he not be satisfied that Freda knew reportedly justified leaving and approved the contents’. more money to his daughters by Giving evidence, Chris Burgess, saying: ‘I am delighted that by of East Molesey, Surrey, reason of his own endeavours denied he had ‘wanted to be in the circumstances of my son are charge’ of his mother’s finances much improved to those which and become ‘head of the family’. Instead he was simply helping his mother because no one else was. He said: ‘I asked my older sister if I could talk to her about my mother’s finances, but she wrote back and said, “Thank you for all your help”.
‘I assisted my mother in everything. I did whatever she told me and I explained everything I was going to do. I never did anything against her wishes.’
His wife, Cleide, who works as a counsellor and life coach, said she and her husband had ‘rallied round’ after Mrs Burgess’s fall, and they had tried to bring the family together.
His barrister, Thomas Dumont, said he was a ‘palpably honest and generous individual who did his utmost to provide his mother with comfort and support when she needed it’.
He added: ‘He was surprised by his mother’s desire to change her will, but it was her idea and he had never raised it with her.’
Judge Catherine Newman QC reserved her decision.