Father’s marriage to family nanny sparks court fight
Daughter ‘disgusted’ by relationship fighting to keep her share of property portfolio worth £1million
A MILLIONAIRE lawyer has become embroiled in a court battle over property ownership with her elderly father after he married her 28-year-old nanny.
Audra Wamsteker, 49, had a “close bond” with her father Paul David, 75, had “promised to look after him until his dying day” and “thought of him like a god,” a court was told.
However, she then found out he had begun what she saw as an “unthinkably repugnant” relationship with Jobeth Daguio, the “live-in nanny” to her two children. In 2013, at the age of 70, Mr David married Ms Daguio, who was then 28, five years after the death of Mrs Wamsteker’s mother.
Central London County Court heard how the father and daughter are arguing over ownership of a flat in London, a house in Surrey, cash from the sale of four properties in the US and 23 items of jewellery which belonged to Mrs Wamsteker’s mother, with the disputed sum worth about £1million.
Judge Simon Monty QC heard that Mrs Wamsteker, who lives in Canary Wharf, and Mr David, who lives in Stratford, East London, were both qualified lawyers.
He was told the pair had always been close in their personal and financial lives, as the family built up a portfolio of properties across London, the US and Malaysia. However Mrs Wamsteker objected to her father’s relationship with Ms Daguio, while Mr David had accepted that he “doesn’t like” his sonin-law, although he denied accusations that he had threatened him with an axe.
This “has resulted in the wholesale breakdown of the close relationship between them,” Mrs Wamsteker’s barrister, Desmond Kilcoyne, told the judge. “The existing litigation is now motivated by a high degree of animosity by Mr David towards his daughter and particularly her husband.” The English properties at stake in the case are a four-bedroom detached bungalow in Worcester Park, Surrey, previously marketed for £740,000, and a flat in West Ham, East London, worth about £275,000.
Mr David says that he is the “beneficial owner” of both properties – despite them being in his daughter’s name – having paid the deposits for them both and either “funded” or made “contributions” to their mortgages.
As well as a declaration that he owns the properties, Mr David wants his daughter to pay him around £150,000 in rent for having “excluded” him from the house and the flat since 2013.
He also claims he paid for four properties in Florida which were sold in 2014 and is now “entitled to the proceeds of sale,” which Mrs Wamsteker currently holds.
Finally Mr David is demanding his daughter return to him 23 items of his late first wife’s jewellery.
Mr Kilcoyne, for Mrs Wamsteker, told the judge that she denies her father has ever owned any of the properties. She also refuses to give up her late mother’s jewellery as she says it was “a gift” by her father before their relationship broke down.
Telling the judge about the close relationship he used to enjoy with his daughter, Mr David said: “She told me, ‘mummy made me swear that I’d look after you to your dying day.’”
Mr Kilcoyne agreed there used to be a “very close bond” between them, adding: “You said your daughter thinks of you like a god.”
But there had been a darker side to their relationship, the barrister claimed. “There’s an aspect of the relationship where she has felt unable to say no to you … she says you used to badger her for money … you felt entitled to ask her for money. You demanded money, you badgered her for money,” he put to Mr David.
The pensioner denied the allegations saying: “She makes me look like some sort of gangster … I look like a horrible man standing here.
“I still love both my children,” he told the judge.
The hearing continues.
‘She makes me look like some sort of gangster... I look like a horrible man standing here’