Lecturer criticises RSPCA's fight over legacy

A LEEDS University lecturer has criticised the RSPCA's lengthy legal fight to stop her inheriting a £2.4m family farm in North Yorkshire after appeal judges gave their reasons for overturning a will that had left it to the animal charity.

Dr Christine Gill said the RSPCA had chosen to "fight me all the way" over her mother's will which included 287-acre Potto Carr Farm, near Northallerton, causing "an enormous burden on me and my family."

The charity now faces an enormous bill after costs orders for the case were mainly made on the indemnity basis – the highest level of assessment usually used to show the displeasure of the court towards a party.

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The unanimous decision of the three Court of Appeal judges, led by Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, was that the will of Dr Gill's mother, Joyce, which left everything to the RSPCA after her husband's death, was invalid because she had not understood what she was doing.

But the Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, said the case of Mrs Gill, who was 82 when she died in 2006 and was stricken by acute agoraphobia and panic disorder, was exceptional and the decision was not "something of a green light" for disappointed beneficiaries to mount challenges to wills freely entered into by relatives on legal advice.

Throughout the court battle, the RSPCA was adamant Mrs Gill had signed her will in 1993 with a "non-shakey" hand and "knew her own mind" when she cut her daughter out of her estate after taking independent legal advice, on grounds she had already been "well provided for".

The High Court had declared the will to be invalid because she had been coerced by her husband, John, into making it. Neither John nor Joyce were members of the RSPCA.

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In October 2009, Dr Gill won her case in the High Court in Leeds after a three-year battle. The 59-year-old had moved into a property next to the family farm and for more than 30 years worked there in what the judge called "hard, strenuous physical labour" to care for her parents.

She had an expectation, based on assurances from both, that she would inherit the farm. The trial judge said it would be "unconscionable" if she did not.

The trial judge had penalised the RSPCA for being unwilling to even consider mediation. In March the charity said it would appeal.

Dr Gill said "After last year's judgment, the RSPCA attempted to justify their stance by saying they were obliged under charity law to defend the claim to trial, that it was a compassionate organisation and that I was the barrier to settlement. The RSPCA refused to accept the judge's decision and I have had to endure another year of stress.

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"We tried to settle this before the appeal. I even offered to set aside an area of the farm as a wildlife sanctuary as part of a deal, but the RSPCA weren't interested. Because of what the Court of Appeal has found, the RSPCA will end up paying more costs now than they would have done had they accepted the original decision."

An RSPCA spokesman said the charity was "pleased" the appeal court had restated the principle that people should be free to leave their property as they choose.

But he added that the decision should not be seen as a green light to disappointed relatives and "we remain concerned about the erosion of freedom to leave one's money to whoever people choose".