Aristocrat sues trustee over house pop star tenant left in a shambles
THE EARL of Cardigan is embroiled in a bitter legal dispute over a country mansion trashed by the pop star Pete Doherty.
The aristocrat is suing a trustee of his extensive Wiltshire estate, Savernake, for failing to ensure a Georgian house was rented out after costly repairs resulting from extensive damage caused by the singer.
The Earl, David Brudenell-Bruce, is suing Wilson Cotton for thousands of pounds in lost rent on Sturmy House following repairs needed when Doherty left the £1 million property “uninhabitable”. Damage caused by the Babyshambles and Libertines singer – whose drug problems and riotous lifestyle made him a cult figure on the British pop scene – included broken windows, graffiti on walls, cats running wild among its nine bedrooms and mounds of rotting rubbish around the property.
Further damage was caused when a burst pipe led to flooding after Doherty, who paid £2,950 a month in rent for Sturmy House, moved out in 2010 without informing the agent.
The damage cost Lord Cardigan’s insurers £65,000 to repair and almost as much in lost rent after it lay empty following Doherty’s departure.
Lord Cardigan, whose ancestors include the general who led the ill-fated charge of the Light Brigade, is also suing Mr Cotton over the £376,768 fees he charged, calling them excessive.
Relations between the two men became so strained that in 2011 Lord Cardigan was accused of sabotaging a commercial pheasant shoot on his estate by destroying stands and “running a dog through the cover so as to disperse the birds”. This led to the shooting syndicate, which had paid £52,000 a year in fees, to turn its back on Savernake, robbing the estate of valuable revenue.
Sturmy House remained empty following its refurbishment after a dispute between the Earl and Mr Cotton over how much rent to charge for the property. The Earl wanted £4,000 a month, while Mr Cotton, a Londonbased chartered accountant, maintained it could only be let for £3,000.
In a further twist the Earl’s son, Viscount Savernake, wanted the property for himself. The delay in renting the house cost the estate an estimated £50,000 in potential revenue, with up to a further £15,000 lost as a result of a dispute between Lord Cardigan and the trustees over the rental of a second property, Little Lye Hill Cottage.
Ownership of the estate is split between Lord Cardigan and majorityholding trustees appointed to manage its affairs by his father and grandfather.
The Earl – described as “abrasive” in court papers – had earlier succeeded in having his former close friend John Moore removed as a trustee after legal action in 2014.
A trial judge at the time said: “Mr Moore has had to put up with a great deal of unpleasantness despite the amount of time he has devoted to the estate.” The Earl, whose title dates back to 1611, has repeatedly experienced financial problems. He has run up costs of more than £600,000 in legal actions and paid his first wife more than £900,000 in a divorce settlement.
By 2013 the Savernake estate had run up debts of £1.8million, with interest charges of £18,000 a month.
He has also fallen out with other family members, most spectacularly his daughter, Lady Catherine BrudenellBruce. The Earl was accused of sending her abusive emails. She obtained a restraining order banning him from attending his first wife’s funeral in 2012.
Lord Cardigan said he had no choice but to sue Mr Cotton. He said: “At the very same time as he was remunerating himself, I was totally penniless. For a long time I survived on unemployment benefit or by working for a firm delivering cooking oil by night to chip shops across the Thames Valley.”
Mr Cotton declined to comment.