Keeping to your word

Judgment was very recently handed down in the proprietary estoppel claim brought by Miss Eirian Davies (represented by Hugh James). The case has made headlines across the country, not least for the sum of £1.3m awarded
to Miss Davies, in satisfaction of her claim against
her parents.

The matter was heard in a split trial at the High Court in Cardiff, and made headlines last May when the Court of Appeal gave judgment in relation to part of the claim. What may not be immediately clear from those headlines is that, in the High Court case, Miss Davies was the defendant.

Miss Davies's claim arose from her years of work at Henllan Farm. Her parents, Mary and Tegwyn, ran a farming business which included their prize winning Caeremyln herd of Holstein Friesians cattle. The court found that Miss Davies had worked hard manual labour for years (working long hours for little pay) and carrying out technical work as well as managing the health and welfare of the herd.

She had been made various promises by her parents, including that she would inherit the farm or be made a partner in the farm business from the time she was 17 years old. These promises were repeated over the years, the most recent being made in 2010.

Counterclaim

The judge noted that the relationship between Miss Davies and her parents had been a difficult one, and that there had been previous disagreements and reconciliations. Matters came to a head in 2012 and, as a result of that breakdown in the relationship, Mr and Mrs Davies issued proceedings seeking possession of Henllan farmhouse, at which Miss Davies and her children lived. In response to those proceedings, Miss Davies counterclaimed in proprietary estoppel.

In matters such as proprietary estoppel claims, and particularly in disputes in farming families, it is easy to assume that the existence of large assets precludes the considerations of more typically vulnerable or financially straitened clients.

A review of the headlines in many of the quoted proprietary estoppel claims, will find that the asset in dispute is worth millions of pounds. Regardless of the figures involved, a claimant in a proprietary estoppel claim is potentially in a particularly vulnerable and precarious situation.

Miss Davies' case illustrates the complex issues that can arise when a dispute concerns families who live and work together. The proprietary estoppel claim did not arise until after Mr and Mrs Davies had sought to evict their daughter and her family from Henllan farmhouse; a home that her parents had promised Miss Davies could live in, rent free, for life.

While the claim continued, Miss Davies and her family remained in the farmhouse at Henllan, living in close proximity to her parents.

These claims by their nature involve the claim of a person who alleges that they have relied upon certain promises to their detriment. Those claimants will often work for defendants whose properties they live in, and upon whose goodwill their livelihoods and security are entirely dependent.

Such disputes will rarely be straightforward.
They will often involve close relationships which
have persisted over a great number of years, despite the scraps and squabbles that almost inevitably arise when living and working together in difficult conditions.

In Miss Davies's case, the court noted that it "cannot compel people who have fallen out to live peaceably with one another"; an undeniable truth which makes the peaceable resolution of proprietary estoppel claims a challenging prospect.

Leah Steele is a solicitor at Hugh James

She writes the regular vulnerable clients comment in Private Client Adviser