Just get a job!
Judge’s rebuke to unemployed daughter, 41, written out of father’s £1million will
A woman cut out of her father’s £1million will was advised to get a job instead as a judge refused her a slice of the fortune yesterday.
Danielle Ames, 41, who gave up work when she became a mother 13 years ago, had said she was shocked when her entrepreneur father michael Ames wrote her out of his will.
She claimed his decision to disinherit her had consigned her and her family to living on a shoestring budget, and that she deserved £300,000 from his estate.
miss Ames told the court that her father, who ran a successful glazing business, was her ‘best friend’ and had ‘doted’ on his only child, telling her: ‘It will be all yours one day.’
But Judge David Halpern QC accused miss Ames of ‘gilding the lily’.
He said that unemployment was a ‘lifestyle choice’ for her and she had no moral claim on the money, which was all left to her stepmother Elaine Ames. The judge said 63-year-old mrs Ames, who was mr Ames’s partner for over 30 years, needed every penny of his fortune to lead a comfortable retirement, as she was past working age and in poor health.
The widow had earlier told the judge that her husband would have been ‘incandescent with rage’ had he lived to see miss Ames claiming a share of his money.
She insisted he had deliberately left his daughter nothing, as he believed grown-up children should ‘look after themselves’. His powerful work ethic meant he had even made his grandchildren toil for their pocket money, London County Court heard.
mr Ames died suddenly aged in 2013 aged 63, and left everything to his second wife.
He divorced miss Ames’s mother in the 1970s, when miss Ames was a young girl, and lived with Elaine from 1980 onwards, marrying her in 2001.
After his death his estate was valued at just over £1million for probate, including the £650,000 family home in woollens Brook, Hertfordshire, where mrs Ames still lives.
miss Ames claimed his decision to disinherit her had consigned her and her partner and two children to living on a shoestring in a rented home in Enfield, north London. The court was told they only had her partner’s £800 monthly wage, plus benefits, to get by on.
But Judge Halpern said miss
‘She is capable of working’
Ames had exaggerated the strength of her relationship with her father, who had been generous to her over the years.
He said mr Ames had given her ‘ considerable financial assistance’, including setting her up in a picture framing business in the 1990s. However she gave it up in 2003 when she became a mother.
The judge said that truth was their bond was ‘a reasonable one, neither unusually good nor unusually bad’.
He added: ‘Danielle has no disability and is fit to work. In contrast, Elaine is past working age and it is apparent that she is not well.
‘Danielle is capable of working and has failed to discharge the burden of proving that she is unable to obtain work.
‘I conclude that her lack of employment is a lifestyle choice. That alone is sufficient to defeat her claim.’
miss Ames now faces legal costs estimated at more than £130,000 – her own of £47,000 plus her stepmother’s of £85,000 – and was given 14 days to make a £34,000 down-payment.
The case comes after recent figures from the London law firm Hugh James showed children are increasingly turning to the courts to challenge their parents’ wills, with high levels of divorce and remarriage complicating legacies.
It added that rising property prices are swelling the value of estates and giving family members a greater incentive to dispute their inheritance.