Farmer’s son loses £3million will battle
A FARMER’S son who sued his mother and sisters over ownership of his dead father’s £3million farm is not entitled to a penny of the fortune, a judge has ruled.
Sam James, 60, said he devoted his life to working for his father on the ‘promise’ that one day hundreds of valuable acres would be his.
But when Allen James died aged 81 in 2012, he was ‘completely cut out’, with the fortune instead passing to Allen’s wife, Sandra, 79, and daughters, Karen James, 58, and Serena Underwood, 55.
Sam challenged the will, claiming his father was suffering from dementia when it was made, but a judge said Allen, a ‘self-made’ man, had promised nothing and was not the sort of man to agree easily to give property away.
The High Court heard that Sam left school early and worked for 35 years on Pennymore Pitt Farm, near Gillingham, Dorset, and in the family haulage business.
His barrister, Penelope Reed QC, said he was an ‘absolute grafter’, who ‘worked his socks off ’. He toiled increasingly hard as his father grew older, eventually becoming the ‘driving force’ of the business.
But Judge Paul Matthews said Sam had already received land and cash from the business during his father’s lifetime and Allen wanted to ‘redress the balance’ by leaving what remained to his wife and daughters.
‘In my judgment, Sam’s eagerness to inherit the farmland from his father has caused him to persuade himself that he was being promised something when he was not,’ the judge said.
‘Allen James did not intend his words in that way, and did not intend them to be relied upon subsequently by Sam.’
The judge added: ‘I accept that Allen James suffered from memory loss and confusion from time to time, and even some irrational behaviour. But there is also considerable evidence of normal behaviour and rational thought.’
He dismissed Sam’s claim to the farm and to overturn his father’s will.