Mayor settles deceased estate with woman's family

Redlands woman Angela, 85, died in 2022, leaving her entire estate worth about $486,000 to the Redland Foundation charity.

Redland Mayor Karen Williams was appointed executor of the estate in 2019 and is also one of 11 directors of the foundation.

Angela’s three children lodged a claim in the District Court last year after discovering they had been written out of their mother’s last will.

While a GP approved Angela’s capacity when she signed her will in October 2019, her family provided evidence to the court that she was showing signs of “cognitive impairment” just two months later.

Her death certificate states she was suffering from dementia when she died.

All parties have now agreed to split the remainder of the estate equally between Angela’s three children and the Redland Foundation.

But much of the estate has been eaten up in legal fees, including more than $74,000 for administration and litigation of the estate and $66,000 for the family’s legal costs, something her daughter Freya said her family was trying to avoid.

“It was a year and a bit of legal challenge,” she said.

“That included long periods of time where we were waiting for responses from the other side.

“If we’d had a sit down [with the Williams], if we’d had any contact at all, if we’d had a person-to-person conversation … I don’t doubt that we could have come to some sort of arrangement and saved ourselves tens of thousands of dollars.”

Her family also wanted to know why two directors of the Redland Foundation also worked for the law firm who produced Angela’s will.

One was a signed witness on the paperwork.

9News does not suggest either lawyer acted improperly.

Freya said the process had taken its toll on her family.

“It’s a first world problem by some people’s standards but at the same time it’s a traumatic event and we’ve had to actually work through it with my brother and myself with our extended family,” she said.

“We’ll be fine but I don’t want others to have to go through it.

“She was my mother, I loved her and I do have happy memories and I’m hoping to focus more on those now.”

“I am not sure why I would sit down with the family of Angela to be honest,” she said at the time.

“I was made executor unbeknown to me and those three children, despite not being in the will of their mother, have received three-quarters of her estate.”

In a statement today she added: “The court has ensured standard due process has occurred and has settled the estate accordingly.

“All information is contained in the publicly available court documents.”