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[Lockie]

Morning everyone,

I’ve asked NPWS about this question, but haven’t got a response yet so I thought I’d ask it here – I’m sure some of you may have had some experience and can give your advice/knowledge.

I’m in the process of updating my Will (When I die!). Now, my other half isn’t a fellow herper but they do tolerate them, help feed them every now and again, and they also handle them. Believe it or not they even drop in to the spare room sometimes to talk to my jungle. More importantly that this, they’ve contributed half the $$$$ for my pythons, their upkeep, the power bill etc. Understandably, when I die I would want my herps to go to them.

Realistically, my other half would most likely want to sell them – which is fine with me because I’m dead! If I had a $$$ worth of herps then I expect they’d sell them and use the money to live on.

This is where I’m a little uncertain; My other half doesn’t have a reptile licence. So what happens if I leave my pythons to them? Can they legally take possession of them to sell them? My collection isn’t that big at the moment – actually its really small – but eventually I’ll probably have a collection worth a bit of money and so this is an issue that I’d really like to get an answer on – especially if I’ll have to make certain legal arrangements NOW and include them in my Will, to ensure there are no hiccups if I do die.

There are herpers out there that have Chondro’s,– heck there are people in NSW with 10 GTPs and more!!! Their collections are worth over $100,000.00. Can you imagine if the government seized those pythons, and took them off your partner because she/he didn’t have a reptile licence?

Surely this issue has come up before? I’m interested to see what NPWS’s advice is – but in the meantime I’d like to hear from you!

Regards,

Lockie