A woman whose own daughters tried to evict her from her home has had the final say – in her last will and testament. It was 15 years ago that Megan Swanston – then aged 70 – was forced into a bitter, costly and draining two-year legal battle to stop her three daughters from evicting her from her home on Medlock Road, Woodhouses. Megan was living in the property with her husband Willie, a former lieutenant commander in the Royal Navy, when he died in 1993.
Their daughters – Elaine Nixon, Lorraine Talbot, and Valerie Hunter – inherited the house after Willie’s death because of a condition in their grandfather’s will that was the result of another family feud. At the time Megan was promised by her daughters that she could stay in the house for the rest of her life, but her security was to be very short-lived.
When daughter Elaine returned from living in Germany with her golfer husband in 1994, she found herself in financial difficulties. Elaine gave her mother a handwritten letter saying she was short of cash and needed to sell the house quickly. Five days later a typed letter warned Megan that if she didn’t leave within two months all three of the daughters would team up and take legal action against her.
The next year, a heart-broken Megan was forced to confront her own children in Oldham County Court, where a judge warned the family they faced legal bills of £25,000. Then, in 1996, just minutes before a final courtroom showdown, a confidential settlement was agreed.
Two years later, the daughters sold the house to a property company for £60,000 on the basis that their mother could remain as the sitting tenant. Talking at the time Megan compared her daughters to "vultures" waiting for her to die to get to their inheritance.
However, it was revealed last week that she has had the final say on the matter – stating that nothing should go to her children because of the way they treated her when she was alive and leaving all of her £20,000 estate to Dr Kershaw’s Hospice in Royton.
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