Analysis
F was a farmer. His family had amassed farmland and property, which he owned and farmed. There were three residential properties belonging to F. F had three daughters including C and a son J. J had worked on the farm from childhood and F had paid the fees for J to go to agricultural college. J was also permitted to find employment elsewhere to earn money. At one point J obtained some inheritance, which he used to move away from the farm for a short period until the money ran out. J then returned to the farm where he lived with his girlfriend G and their children. J continued to do some work on the farm, but at that time it was largely subject to a farm-sharing agreement with a third party. J was permitted a small amount of land, which he used inter alia to breed guinea pigs and for livery. C lived in one of the other properties on the farm. F died leaving his whole estate to C with a direction (imposing no legal obligation) that if J should prove himself as a farmer then C should transfer the farm to him. She refused to do so. J brought a claim for the transfer of the farm land to him on the basis of proprietary estoppel and he, G and their two sons brought a claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975. The claim under the 1975 Act was to be heard after the outcome of the proprietary estoppel action.
Held (awarding part of the farm and property to J)
- (1) F had been delighted at having a son after three daughters and he had always hoped that J would inherit the farm if J showed himself to be a suitable farmer, but F was let down by J who had not applied himself to farming. However, as between J and F, F had made promises such as ‘all this’ (meaning the farmland) would be J’s one day and that the ‘farm’ or ‘farms’ would be J’s. J was also told that ‘no farmer pays their son as it will all be theirs one day’ and ‘you can do what you want when the farm is yours’. Those promises were not conditional and, as between J and F they were sufficiently clear in context and intended to be taken seriously and reasonably, were taken as such by J.
- (2) Although J did obtain benefits (including money’s worth in the form of sheep or grain as well as food and shelter) from working on the farm, J relied, to his detriment, on the promises made by F as J did not work for as much as he might have expected to have if he had been an agricultural worker. All the profits J made in his own business on the farm were ploughed back in and J positioned his whole life on the basis of the promises.
- (3) It was therefore unconscionable for F to deprive J of his reasonable expectations, although not the whole of all F’s property, not least because F had indicated to C that she would also be rich on F’s death. The ambit of what J could have reasonably expected by the time of F’s death was the farmland and a place for him and his family to live. J’s equity would be satisfied by the transfer of the farmland and the property he currently resided in. It was not appropriate to give C a mere life interest in the property in which she lived, or for J to take the money in the farm accounts at the time of F’s death; Thorner applied.
Continue reading "Suggitt v Suggitt & anr [2011] EWHC 903 (Ch)"