Woman who moved to Cornwall locked in ‘modern day King Lear’ inheritance fight with her mother over £7.5m glamping site
A woman is locked in an inheritance fight over a £7.5million glamping site with her mother which a judge has compared to a “modern day King Lear”.
Angela Heyes and her husband Neil moved from Surrey to Cornwall 10 years ago after they were promised they would inherit Angela’s parents’ farm.
The site also features a glamping business with an on-site yurt.
But following the death of her father Patrick Holt in 2020, Angela and her mother, Sarah Holt are now caught up in a high court battle over the ownership of the family land.
The court dispute is set to cost around £1m in lawyers’ bills and has been likened to a Shakespearean tragedy.
Judge Paul Matthews said: “The proceedings are between a daughter and her husband on the one side, and her mother and her father’s estate, supported by the daughter’s two siblings, on the other.
“It is a tragedy for all concerned. This is not only because it splits a family, pitting a parent and two children against another child in a dispute about family property, like a modern-day King Lear.”
The court heard that Angela and Neil moved from Surrey to Truro, Cornwall in September 2015 after a family conversation about the future of the 60-plus acre site.
Angela said: “During that conversation, my father told us that he wanted us to relocate to live nearby to the farm so that we could learn the ropes in relation to the farming business and take on the farm, and he specifically assured us that the farm would be ours one day and that he wanted it to stay in the family for future generations.”
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“After that formal conversation, Neil and I, together with our two young children…abandoned our plans in the Guildford area and arranged to move to Cornwall at the end of July 2014.
“We bought a house right next to the farm, and Neil gave up his job and has worked on the farm since September 2015.”
The couple are now suing Angela’s mother as they argue the land is theirs due to the alleged promises made under the legal concept of “proprietary estoppel”.
Holt has hit back saying Angela has siblings, sister Jennifer and half-brother Justin, who is her son by a previous relationship.
In her evidence to the court, she said: “So, [Angela] has time and time again admitted that she always knew she had not been promised the whole farm, and that she knew that if she did get the lion’s share of the farm, she would have to ‘settle up’ with her sister and half-brother.
“There was no promise or assurance, and they knew it.”
Angela said she quit her job with professional services company Accenture in 2019 and took a local job “at a reduced salary of £75,000 per annum”.
While her husband worked full time on the farm, which includes a livery business and glamping site.
Holt said her daughter, despite moving in 2015, did not quit her jobs until years later which she had “chosen to give it up”.
She added that discussions about their future at the farm were always provisional.
Last month, Holt applied for a “reverse summary judgment” – which would end her daughter and son-in-law’s claim without it going to trial.
Judge Matthews said the couple’s case was “weak” but rejected Holt’s application for judgment.
The judge ordered the parties to attempt to settle their differences outside of court, adding that the case would “ruin” Angela and Neil if it went to trial and they lost.