'Cowshed Cinderella' - wins £1.3million from her parents

[pgk]

You need to look up PROPRIETARY ESTOPPEL, and see if this applies to you. It sounds as if it does.

What is proprietary estoppel? definition and meaning

Definition of proprietary estoppel: Legal bar preventing a (first) party from denying another (second) party's right in first party's property where the second party has incurred costs in that property to its detriment.

www.businessdictionary.com

This barrister represented Ms Davies

Adam Boyle | Proprietary Estoppel - St John's Chambers

Get in touch with barrister Adam Boyle for Proprietary Estoppel legal advice. Contact St John's Chambers today for a service you can trust.

www.stjohnschambers.co.uk

Good advice!

 

[DrWazzock]

Bit late to this thread. What’s her address?

 

[caveman]

Proprietor Estoppel.
Read and study this evidence on appeal plus the Judgment, in the highest court in the land.
Think backwards, sideways and upside down and compare the evidence with your own circumstances and life leading up untill now.
Start making notes on everything you can remember from the year dot.
You did have so many other chances in life that you denied yourself to your detriment. Didn't you?

Judgement - Gillett v. Holt CA

 

[Farmer_Joe]

Christ that’s a read, poor f**ker that wood fellow sounds like a right twit, but old Men get funny ideas Hence the last minute will change very poor show.

the only thing to learn from that is ‘all yours one day’ mean sh!t, start transferring it now if your serious At least then people are committed

that poor fellow built that man a huge farming empire and portfolio at his expense and skill...

 

[kiwi pom]

Whilst evidence in writing is good the word of a person can hold the same weight. If you have taken on loans and can show these were used to put the farm on a good financial footing this will be reflected in loan agreements and the farm accounts which are all good evidence. Did for example you put a business plan to the bank to secure the loan. Were you the person making the decisions, dealing with agents professionals etc, all good evidence to support your understanding that this was on the basis of a binding agreement with your parents.

Surely once you start putting money in instead of taking it out (board, bills, vehicles, beer money etc) you'd sort out your position in the business properly?

I get not doing it when you leave school, putting your foot down then may result in you being told to go and make your own way in the world. At that point your parents probably think they are doing you a favour by letting you stay at home but by the time you're 25-30 you should be grown up enough to sort things out for your own future. If it doesn't work out you're young enough to say thank you for the start, now I'm moving on.

Never having been in that situation I'm probably missing something, I just find it all a bit strange.

 

[kiwi pom]

If you're a farmers son or daughter in your 20's reading this thread and you're working at home for your parents, do yourself a favour and sort your future out now rather than leaving it until its too late.

 

[pgk]

Surely once you start putting money in instead of taking it out (board, bills, vehicles, beer money etc) you'd sort out your position in the business properly?

I get not doing it when you leave school, putting your foot down then may result in you being told to go and make your own way in the world. At that point your parents probably think they are doing you a favour by letting you stay at home but by the time you're 25-30 you should be grown up enough to sort things out for your own future. If it doesn't work out you're young enough to say thank you for the start, now I'm moving on.

Never having been in that situation I'm probably missing something, I just find it all a bit strange.

It does strike me as strange but reported cases show this sort of scenario is not unusual in families and particularly in farming families where there is a particularly common heartfelt attraction to a particular farm.

 

[goodevans]

Proprietor Estoppel.
Read and study this evidence on appeal plus the Judgment, in the highest court in the land.
Think backwards, sideways and upside down and compare the evidence with your own circumstances and life leading up untill now.
Start making notes on everything you can remember from the year dot.
You did have so many other chances in life that you denied yourself to your detriment. Didn't you?

Judgement - Gillett v. Holt CA

More like a novel I would say,didnt realise Mr Holt was still alive till the last bit (I think ),surely if he is still alive then it is up to him who gets what without any other legal documentation. I guess he also bats for the other side

 

[bovrill]

Thank you everyone.
I've held back from saying too much on here after my initial comments. I've got to take things further, and anything here is a little bit too 'Google-able' to have put too many details, and I don't exactly hide who I am!

I kind of agree with the comments about someone in their twenties walking away, but it's a different story when you're in your 50's, and with a fairly beaten up body over the years to show for it.
I've no doubt I have the skills to do other work, I've been doing contracting, night shifts and off-farm winter work all my life to earn money to put into the farm. But that's not what I want to be doing.

I've put my all into this place for 35 years, and longer than that if you count all I was doing while supposedly at school, and had expected by now that I would have had control of the income by now to be able to live a life without running round the country to survive.
I never have, and never want to, live the high life. I want to farm the small farm that my great, great grandfather took on a long time ago.

I know I've been naive. I've trusted my parents word, and when a few years have slipped by without the actions they promised, I've believed the excuses, and reset the clock with a fresh set of promises.
Then suddenly thirty years have flown by, and I've no idea how I've slipped into this situation. Maybe I deserve it, the meek do not inherit the earth after all, a hefty dose of selfishness and ruthlessness are what it takes, and I just don't have them.

 

[tepapa]

Seems like farm sons/daughters should be getting 2% of the business for every year worked. So after 25 years they would have 50% of the business.

 

[farenheit]

Seems like farm sons/daughters should be getting 2% of the business for every year worked. So after 25 years they would have 50% of the business.

Absurdly arbitrary. I’ve been working on the farm for 15 years but I am genuinely useless at it and I would be appalled if my mother gave me more than a salary.

 

[tepapa]

Absurdly arbitrary. I’ve been working on the farm for 15 years but I am genuinely useless at it and I would be appalled if my mother gave me more than a salary.

That's ok, but then I can assume your not planning on inheriting the farm or working for nothing but a promise. You are just a salaried employee and the farm is your mother's to do with as she wishes once she has deceased.

 

[B R C]

You don’t have to give away capital assets, just make your children who are working on the farm partners in the business only, then at least you are working up a share in the business and the more you put in in time, expertise and enthusiasm the more you build up. The older generation may want to take a bit more out the the younger may leave more in, this will all be in the accounts and is a very fair way to do it with no bitterness about people not pulling their weight or being undervalued etc. The capital assets can be dealt with separately.

 

[tepapa]

You don’t have to give away capital assets, just make your children who are working on the farm partners in the business only, then at least you are working up a share in the business and the more you put in in time, expertise and enthusiasm the more you build up. The older generation may want to take a bit more out the the younger may leave more in, this will all be in the accounts and is a very fair way to do it with no bitterness about people not pulling their weight or being undervalued etc. The capital assets can be dealt with separately.

But in many cases the business will be worth little if it is based on making a profit from the capital i.e. the land. You could end up with a herd of cows and no land to keep them on. You will have livestock or dead stock asset's but be forced to sell.

 

[multi power]

You don’t have to give away capital assets, just make your children who are working on the farm partners in the business only, then at least you are working up a share in the business and the more you put in in time, expertise and enthusiasm the more you build up. The older generation may want to take a bit more out the the younger may leave more in, this will all be in the accounts and is a very fair way to do it with no bitterness about people not pulling their weight or being undervalued etc. The capital assets can be dealt with separately.

You don't have to give anything away, but if you promise something you have to stick with it

 

[Cowcorn]

Thank you everyone.
I've held back from saying too much on here after my initial comments. I've got to take things further, and anything here is a little bit too 'Google-able' to have put too many details, and I don't exactly hide who I am!

I kind of agree with the comments about someone in their twenties walking away, but it's a different story when you're in your 50's, and with a fairly beaten up body over the years to show for it.
I've no doubt I have the skills to do other work, I've been doing contracting, night shifts and off-farm winter work all my life to earn money to put into the farm. But that's not what I want to be doing.

I've put my all into this place for 35 years, and longer than that if you count all I was doing while supposedly at school, and had expected by now that I would have had control of the income by now to be able to live a life without running round the country to survive.
I never have, and never want to, live the high life. I want to farm the small farm that my great, great grandfather took on a long time ago.

I know I've been naive. I've trusted my parents word, and when a few years have slipped by without the actions they promised, I've believed the excuses, and reset the clock with a fresh set of promises.
Then suddenly thirty years have flown by, and I've no idea how I've slipped into this situation. Maybe I deserve it, the meek do not inherit the earth after all, a hefty dose of selfishness and ruthlessness are what it takes, and I just don't have them.

Chin up Bovril at least now the gloves are off and its game on . Stand your ground and do whatever you have too . I wish you all the best and hope it works out in your favour . Famlies are funny, when my father died my siblings were all talk about challenging wills and looking for equal shares . The got over it after a while but a residue of bitterness remains with me over the way the tried to do me over .
When i read stories like yours my blood boils .
All thw best