£1.7m ‘cash cow’
That’s what I was, says businesswoman who spent 16 years ‘lavishing jewels’ on jobless lesbian lover as she loses legal battle over their luxury home
AN UNEMPLOYED law graduate who was accused of sponging off her rich girlfriend has won a £1.7million fight over their former home.
Shree Ladwa, 43, was lavished with designer jewellery, an Aston Martin and hundreds of thousands in cash during a 16-year relationship with businesswoman Beverley Chapman, 46.
Miss Chapman worked to fund their luxury lifestyle, paying off the mortgage, buying the Aston Martin for her birthday and proposing with a diamond ring on a Monte Carlo clifftop.
In court, Miss Chapman said she was treated as a cash cow by her ex, who lawyers claimed did not do a ‘proper day’s work’ during their time together.
When the ‘tempestuous’ relationship foundered, it led to a bitter county court battle over their former home near Chingford, Essex. Miss Ladwa claimed she was entitled to half the property, like a housewife in a traditional divorce. She said this was what the couple had intended.
Arguing that Miss Ladwa should get nothing, Miss Chapman said she had been pressured by her ex into putting the house in joint names.
Ruling on the case, Judge Stephen Murch found that it was their ‘common intention’ on buying the house that it would be jointly owned.
And he rejected Miss Chapman’s claim that she only transferred the house into joint names because of Miss Ladwa’s ‘undue influence’.
He added: ‘I was left with the impression that Miss Chapman has convinced herself that her version of events is to be preferred, regretting what she now perceives to have been undue generosity when she was in a relationship with Miss Ladwa.’
Central London County Court heard the couple began dating in 2000 and lived together from early on in their relationship.
Miss Chapman worked in her family’s successful building business, while Miss Ladwa was a third-year law student at university. Her degree did not lead to a permanent job, nor her time training at cookery college, Le Cordon Bleu, Miss Chapman’s lawyers told the court.
The house was bought for £1.4million in 2007. It is now thought to be worth £1.7million. The relationship ended in 2016. Miss Ladwa gave back her £75,000 engagement rings. The falling out led to a court fight as the women argued over ownership of the house and Miss Chapman sued for the return of £400,000 in alleged loans, designer shoes, bags and jewellery by Cartier, Christian Dior and Louis Vuitton, and the proceeds of sale of the Aston Martin. Miss Ladwa’s only income was a £25,000-a-year allowance from her mother and Miss Chapman said it was only her ex’s incessant nagging that led her to put the house in joint names. Alleging undue influence, she claimed Miss Ladwa behaved like a child begging for a toy, constantly badgering her until she relented. ‘you get to the point where you are really tired out by hearing the same thing, again and again and again,’ she told the judge. Miss Ladwa’s barrister, Anthony Geadah, said it was a relationship of ‘love and affection’ and Miss Chapman had merely been honouring a promise to a partner of many years when she agreed to put the house in joint names. He said Miss Ladwa was ‘effectively the housewife’, while Miss Chapman was out making money for them to live on. Dismissing Miss Chapman’s claims for return of jewellery, shoes and handbags, together worth around £130,000, the judge said they had been gifts. The case was considered at Central London County Court in January, and the judge’s ruling made public yesterday.