A Hampshire bird lover’s legacy to a New Forest owl sanctuary is at the centre of a High Court dispute after the object of her generosity ceased to exist.

When Vera Spear died in a nursing home she left everything she had to be split between four animal charities – “save for a personal bequest of her parrot.”

Mrs Spear had no |children and was living in a nursing home in Fareham wehen she died aged 84.

And her £260,000 estate was to be divided equally between the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Peoples Dispensary for Sick Animals, of Priorslee, Telford; Monkey World Ltd, of Bindon Abbey, Dorset, and the New Forest Owl Sanctuary Ltd, of Crow, near Ringwood.

But her will has sparked a complex legal wrangle – five years after her death, as the New Forest Owl Sanctuary (NFOS) no longer exists.

That now leaves a question mark over where its £65,000 share should go, an issue brought to court by lawyers for the Attorney General, Dominic Grieve.

Mr Grieve’s barrister, Christopher Buckley, said NFOS was removed from the Charities Register in August 2006 but, according to Companies House, it was only “dissolved” as a corporation in February 2007, a month after Mrs Spear died.

There were some 240 owls at the sanctuary when it broke up, the court heard, but many of them were re-homed at the North Wales Bird Trust (NWBT), in Bodafon Farm Park, Llandudno, now vying for a share of Mrs Spear’s estate.

Pamela Broughton, one of NWBT’s trustees, said her centre had taken on 137 of the birds and outlined their convoluted migration to north Wales.

The case has reached court because NWBT claims to have stepped into the shoes of NFOS on the basis that the owl sanctuary “gifted” it most of its birds.

“NFOS no longer exists and cannot take the gift,” said Mr Buckley.

However, before NWBT can inherit the £65,000, Judge David Cooke must be convinced there was a “paramount charitable intent” lying behind Mrs Spear’s gift and it was “for the purposes” once pursued by NFOS, rather than a gift to the defunct charity “absolutely.”

If NWBT, or any other charity, is not entitled to inherit the legacy the judge must then decide whether the £65,000 should pass to 16 “named beneficiaries” - all relatives of Mrs Spear who have been traced by lawyers using an expert genealogist.

Judge Cooke has now reserved his decision in the case and will give his ruling at a later date.