Inheritance Dispute Over £15 Million Mansion Wotton House

Multimillionaire former ambassador David Gladstone is engaged in a Court battle with Leigh White, who claims that she is the “rightful heiress” to a £15 million mansion, Wotton House, and has refused to move out.

Gladstone and another v White and others

Case background

Mr Gladstone inherited the Grade I-listed stately home from his first wife who died in 2014.

During the pandemic, Mr Gladstone moved out of Wotton House to isolate himself in Cumbria and left Ms White to live in the mansion. Mr Gladstone, 87, now wants to return to spend his final years in his home. However, Ms White claimed that the mansion was promised to her and she is the rightful successor of his £20 million estate, and refused to leave.

The parties’ relationship went back to the early 90s. Mr and Mrs Gladstone developed a close friendship with Ms White of their shared interest in Sri Lanka (Mr Gladstone was a former high commissioner of Sri Lanka), classical music, and theatre. Ms White says that Mr Gladstone treated her as a “surrogate daughter”.

Ms White claimed that from 2007, Mr Gladstone repeatedly promised that Wotton House and his estate would go to her when he died. Ms White’s barrister told the Court that, at a lunch at the National Liberal Club that year, Mr Gladstone asked if Ms White would “take on” Wotton House and so Ms White understood that as meaning she would inherit it. The “promise” was allegedly repeated in 2011 over a dinner. Ms White then moved into Wotton House in 2017 after her son’s death. Eventually, Ms White’s husband and son also moved to Wotton House.

Mr Gladstone recently sought to return to Wotton House with his new wife and asked Ms White to leave the mansion, only to be met with her refusal. This led to the complete breakdown of their relationship. As a result, Mr Gladstone made a new Will, placing his estate in a trust for the benefit of his family and removing Ms White as a trustee and as one of several potential beneficiaries of a discretionary trust.

Ms White claims that she had relied on Mr Gladstone’s promise that she would inherit his estate and, as a result, her career as a lawyer was compromised due to the time and work that she spent on managing Wotton House since 2007. She claimed that, upon Mr Gladstone’s request, she spent a substantial amount of time helping to manage Wotton House and caring for him and his family and her life has taken a different course. Ms White now argues that it would be unconscionable for Mr Gladstone to go back on his promise.

Mr Gladstone counters by saying that Ms White was never asked to manage Wotton House; he himself had been managing it for many years. Furthermore, it was said in Court that Ms White had never been the main beneficiary in any of Mr Gladstone’s Wills. Mr Gladstone argues that the alleged promise that Ms White would “take on” Wotton House could not reasonably be interpreted to mean that she would inherit the mansion, let alone live there before his death.

The Court is expected to deliver its decision in the near future.

Comment

The case of Wotton House is based on an equitable doctrine called proprietary estoppel. When a party has made an unequivocal promise to another and the other party has relied on that promise to their detriment, it would be unconscionable for the one making the promise to go back on it.

Proprietary estoppel is often considered to be “a shield and not a sword”, meaning that the doctrine is raised only to defend an action, but not for making a claim for an interest in properties. However, it has been used as a sword on numerous occasions, most recently in the case of Guest v Guest, in which a disgruntled son brought a claim against his parents for disinheriting him on the basis that they promised that he would inherit the family farm and he relied on that promise to his detriment (see previous blog).

Establishing proprietary estoppel is a highly fact-sensitive enquiry. The Court will scrutinise every fact to determine if the elements of the doctrine are supported. The Court had previously ruled on issues such as whether statements uttered were clear and unequivocal enough to give rise to a promise, and whether the party relying on the promise had suffered detriment substantial enough to make it unconscionable for the promisor to go back on the promise.

The Court’s decision on this case is awaited with much anticipation; it may once again shed light on how the doctrine of proprietary estoppel works in reality.