hn Suggitt was awarded a £3m slice of his father's farm, despite his dad thinking he was a 'lazy'
As a teenager, he gave up his weekends and holidays to work on the family farm, preparing himself for the day when it would all be his.
But after John Suggitt dropped out of agricultural college and frittered away tens of thousands of pounds, his father Frank decided his ‘lazy’ only son was not worthy of the land after all.
The farmer wrote John out of his will – leaving his £4million estate to his university graduate daughter Caroline instead.
Now, following their father’s death, brother and sister have found themselves at the centre of an extraordinary legal battle.
John, now 31, challenged his father’s will, claiming that Frank had repeatedly promised he would one day inherit the farm.
And a High Court judge agreed, ruling that as John had worked for years for no wage on the understanding that the farm would one day be his, he was entitled to it.
He awarded John a £3million share of the estate, including the 400 acres of farmland and a £760,000 house for his family to live in.
But Caroline, 37, challenged that ruling at the Court of Appeal in London, insisting it went against the wishes expressed in her father’s will – which stated that John should not get his hands on the land until she believed he was capable of farming it.
However, her bid to snatch back the estate was rejected yesterday.
Lady Justice Arden, sitting in the Appeal Court with Lord Justice Sullivan and Sir Nicholas Wall, said a key factor was that Frank had given ‘unconditional’ assurances to his son that he would receive the farmland and a house to live in when he died.
The court heard how the siblings were split by a ‘deep rift’ after Frank died aged 65 in 2009, with their divorced mother and two sisters siding with John over Caroline.
Well Field farm in Whemby, Yorkshire, which boasts 400 acres of farmland and a £760,000 house
Just a few hundred yards away was the farmhouse, where John lived with his partner and three children, and another £465,000 house which was being restored.
Caroline Suggitt had been told by her father she would be a 'rich woman on his death'
But in the original High Court ruling, Judge Roger Kaye pointed out that Frank was a ‘Yorkshire farmer, not a lawyer’ and his will stated that if in Caroline’s opinion John ‘showed himself capable of working on and managing’ the farm then it should be transferred to him.
Despite awarding John a £3million share in the estate, Judge Kaye acknowledged the difficult relationship between the farmer and his son, saying John was ‘apt to grumble and complain that his father gave him nothing’ and seemed ‘entirely to overlook the fact that his father paid everything for him’, including his food, lodging, living expenses and college fees.
Frank wanted John to be ‘a good farmer in the family tradition’ and he did not turn out as he hoped.
‘Frank brought John up in a tough way and in a tough world, but John could not cope,’ Judge Kaye said.
As a young man John worked on the farm at weekends and holidays and was given his own livestock and 50 acres to manage. But at the age of 19, he dropped out of college and ‘ran through’ a £38,000 bequest from an aunt in just nine months.
John briefly left home after his father decided he was not fit to run the farm and recruited another farmer. When he returned, he worked in a pub and a shop before setting up his own poultry and livery business with Frank’s support.
Under the judge’s ruling – upheld by the Appeal Court – John will be able to take over the running of the farm when the sharing agreement in place with another farmer expires this year.
Caroline was left to choose which of the remaining homes to live in and will keep the remainder of the estate.
The judge concluded: ‘One of the unfortunate features of this case has been the inability of the parties to compromise an obviously compromisable case. Whether they now do so in light of this judgment is a matter for them.’
Read more: dailymail
No comments:
Post a Comment