Woman to lose lifetime home

Press, 30 January 1981, Page 1

Woman to lose lifetime home

A Sydenham woman has spent her life’s savings fighting an unsuccessful battle to stay in her Gibbon Street home.

Miss Daisy Lilley, aged 75. who was an unpaid housekeeper for her uncle, and then to her cousin, learnt yesterday morning that she would probably have to leave her home o’f 59 years. The Privy Council in London has confirmed an earlier decision of the Court of Appeal. Her case was dismissed with costs. The court battles will have cost her more than $6OOO. Since she was 16, Miss Lilley has lived in the house as a children’s nurse and housekeeper. She looked after her uncle until he died in 1939, and after that his son, Mr Francis Lilley, to whom he had given the house.

She said that both men had said she could live there. But in a will made in 1942, Mr Francis Lilley, who died in 1974, gave her only two years occupation after his death. She said she had stayed because the beneficiaries under the will had agreed. •In March, 1976, the executor of the will, the Public Trustee, had given her notice to quit. The beneficiaries had “led her up the garden path.” They wanted to bulldoze the house and sell the section.

“I have put all my time into this house and look where I’ve landed,’ Miss Lilley said. Her ccasin had given her only two years occupation because when he made the will there was a possibility that she might marry. He just “never got round to changing the will” when she stayed single — he was one of those people who “was always putting things off.” For the last few years Miss Lilley has put most of her money into fighting court battles, eating little more than toast and drinking cups of tea. Apart from some furniture left to her by her cousin, and other personal belong-

ings, she had little. In 59 years her only income had been the pension, although her cousin had always seen that she got what she needed.

Moving into a pensioner’s cottage would “drive her silly.” She said she wanted a big, old house, like her Gibbon Street home — “nothing flash”, just somewhere for herself, her five or six cats, and her talking cockatiel.

Now Miss Lilley is faced with the prospect of leaving her home, with no place to go. There are relatives, but none she can live with.

The Public Trustee opposed her claim to bring proceedings for provision out of the estate because she had not begun her action within a year of his taking out representation to Mr Lilley’s estate on April 17, 1974, when probate was granted, said Lord Wilberforce, pre-

siding in the Privy Coun-

The Press Association reports that the Law Lords agreed that the Public Trustee was correct and said that Miss Lilley's appeal must be rejected.

Miss Lilley’s solicitor, Mr D. H. P. Dawson, said that the beneficiaries would probably now resume court proceedings to get an order for her to leave her home.

They had taken the case to the Privy Council because in a similar case in Australia the Lords had found in favour of the appellant, he said. For Miss Lilley the Privy Council’s decision is the last straw. Not only was she too late in contesting the will hut in June last year burglars broke into her home, while she was out, taking $BOO, money that was to have gone towards the cost of the legal battles.