Strip my son of his £5m
Mother ‘left with nothing’ takes fight to appeal court
A Mother is locked in a courtroom struggle with her son over control of a £5 million inheritance.
Pamela Moore, 75, and her son, Stephen, 51, failed to get along ever since he was a youngster.
Mrs Moore valued academic achievement, but said Stephen was more interested in fast cars and farming on their 650-acre estate.
relations between the two got worse in 2008 when Stephen acquired a half-share of the £10 million farm from his uncle and later splashed out on a sports car.
his mother accused him of ‘becoming very full of himself with his newfound role and wealth’ and of using family money ‘as a piggy bank’.
in 2012, after dedicating his life to working the land near Stapleford, wiltshire, Stephen learned that his mother and his father, roger Moore, 75, had written him out of their wills. They instead decided to leave their £5 million share of the family’s holdings to his sister, Julie.
Stephen challenged this in court, saying his father – who is now in a care home with advanced dementia – ‘promised’ him that the whole £10 million farm, including the ‘substantial’ Grade 2 listed Manor Farmhouse, ‘would all be his one day’.
in 2016 Judge Simon Monty ruled that roger’s promises trumped his will and Stephen was entitled to ‘the whole lot’. Now Mrs Moore, who says she has been left with ‘no assets’ and is trapped living with a son she is at war with, is asking the Court of appeal to hand back the millions she says should be hers.
The court was told she is acting on behalf of her husband roger as the disputed share of the farming partnership is in his name.
attacking Judge Monty’s decision, Christopher Pymont QC, for Mrs Moore, said her rights as roger’s wife had been ‘overridden’.
roger had full mental capacity when he changed his will and his understandable intention ‘ was to protect Pamela’ if he died before her, the QC argued.
‘Pamela is the wife in a long successful marriage of 50 years with rights to a half share of anything her husband had,’ he said. ‘ The effect of the judge’s order is that Pamela has no assets left.
‘The result is very stark and, we suggest, obviously wrong.’
he also complained that the judge’s ruling forced Pamela to live ‘locked together’ with her estranged son. he said that making them live together is ‘simply not a tolerable and practical solution between people who have fallen out so badly’.
The court was told Stephen, a married father-of-two, ‘has worked on
‘Using family as a piggy bank’
the farm since his childhood’, toiling up to 100 hours a week, and is also a rally driver in his spare time.
in 2008, roger’s brother Geoffrey transferred his half share in the business to Stephen for just £500,000 in recognition of his commitment to the land.
his barrister, Caroline Shea QC, said it was ‘plain to all involved’ that he would take over the farm, and urged judges to leave the estate entirely in his hands. She said: ‘Stephen based his whole life on promises made to him by his father in the context of his knowledge … of the over-arching plan to keep the farm within the Moore family.’
‘Stephen could have done nothing more to fulfil his side of the quasi bargain … the expectation should be fulfilled.’ The judges are expected to reserve their judgment on Pamela’s appeal until a later date.