When sibling rivalry turns nasty

Parents are asking for trouble if they play favourites when it comes to dividing up the estate

- Susan Hely

Disputes between siblings can sometimes spiral out of control. In July brothers Garry and Malcolm Taylor were so jealous of their sister Kerrie’s appointment as executor of the estate of their late mother, Lois, that they took extreme revenge.

The brothers had previously unsuccessfully challenged their older sister’s role as executor and the County Court of Victoria ordered them to help Kerrie sell the family home in Murtoa, in north-western Victoria.

A day before the home was going to auction, the pair flew down from Queensland, hired a car, and drove to the home where they went on a rampage. They hired an excavator and rammed the machine’s bucket through the walls, trashing the home so their sister would not “get a cent”.

The value of the property plunged from $95,000 to just $7500. After the brothers were charged, they offered to pay their sister a reasonable sum as compensation for what would have been her share of the house sale proceeds. The judge, Michael Cahill, who fined them $21,000, said, “You were laughing when you destroyed your, and your sister’s, inheritance. Now the world is laughing at your stupidity”.

This is an extreme case of siblings who have become so emotional about another sibling’s role that they lost all perspective.

As parents, you don’t want anything so bitter to tear your family apart. But I am hearing more stories about siblings who have fallen out. It has happened in my own family.