Mum claws back £200k from son's ex-girlfriend after money was meant for a house
A mother has won a painful battle to claw back £200,000 from her son's ex-girlfriend that she had given the couple to buy a house.
Liana Fox had been given the money by her boyfriend's wealthy mother but, when the couple split up, a row erupted over the cash. Mrs Fox had been in a relationship with Andreas Matt, son of Hannelore Matt, the rich founder of a multi-million-pound company producing glasses and eyewear. Mrs Fox, 61, and Mrs Matt, 87, had been the best of friends and were described in court as being "as close as mother and daughter".
Hannelore Matt (in wheelchair) and her son Andreas Matt (pushing) outside Central London County Court (Champion News)Mrs Matt had given Mrs Fox the £200,000 to buy a home for the three of them in Kent but when Mrs Fox broke up with Andreas, the two women's friendship broke down too. Former art gallery boss Mrs Fox, from Ashford, refused to repay the money, saying that Andreas had called her a "bloody cow" and claiming she had used it to pay off his debts while they were together, triggering a bitter court battle.
Mrs Fox and Andreas' started seeing each other as teenagers in the 1970s, but they parted, with Mrs Fox marrying in England and Andreas working for the family business in Regensburg, Germany. Mrs Fox had a son with her husband Nigel, but was widowed in 2009, before reigniting her relationship with Andreas the following year.
The pair had an official engagement in Malta, with a €15,000 ring bought by Andreas for Mrs Fox in 2014. However, Andreas found himself in trouble with the police and, in 2018, was convicted and later jailed for embezzlement involving "€596,000 provided to him by a third party investor," said his mum's barrister Jeff Hardman.
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Andreas wanted to move to England and his mum advanced €225,000 to Mrs Fox towards jointly purchasing a property in the Kent countryside, Mr Hardman added. However, the purchase never took place and, after they split in 2020, his mum then demanded the money be repaid, said the barrister.
Mrs Matt's barrister told the judge that a series of texts had been sent by Andreas, asking for his mum's money back, to which Mrs Fox had said she could not repay it. And when asked why she could not return the cash, Mrs Fox responded: "Bloody cows don’t answer text messages...To the people who call them bloody cows. No one in my whole life has ever called me that."
He said Mrs Matt made 12 separate demands for payment before Mrs Fox abandoned her previous excuses and claimed that the money was to cover Andreas' debts.
"She has adopted and discarded arguments to suit her narrative, and has gone to extraordinary lengths to portray Mrs Matt’s son as some sort of impecunious grifter," Mr Hardman argued.
Defending the claim, Mrs Fox, who formerly ran a sculpture gallery in Canterbury, insisted that she had been owed hundreds of thousands of pounds, which she had loaned to Andreas during their relationship. Much of the money had gone on "extravagant" boy toys, including a Mercedes car, a camper van and a three-wheeled flying trike, she said.
Her barrister, Christopher Snell, said Andreas' earlier conviction arose from his relationship with a "lady of means" and his then "embezzling her money," suggesting he had "exhibited a similar pattern of behaviour in relation to Mrs Fox."
"Mrs Fox was – throughout the time of her relationship with Andreas – a lady of means," he said.
"She had inherited significant wealth following her husband’s sad demise from cancer. She had no need to borrow money from Mrs Matt – or any other person – in order to purchase a property in the United Kingdom.
"The extent of her means is clear from the amount of money that she expended during the course of her relationship with Andreas, which included ...her paying his legal bills during his criminal trial, paying bail money on his behalf, and loaning him sizeable sums of money in order to make extravagant purchases."
After a week-long trial at Central London County Court, Judge Mark Raeside KC dismissed Mrs Fox's debt claim as "implausible" and ordered her to hand back the money she had been given. Ruling, he said Mrs Matt had considered Mrs Fox "as close as a daughter" and trusted her enough to hand her the money towards buying a cottage in the Kent countryside for the family.
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Giving judgment at the end of the trial, Judge Raeside said Mrs Fox had "convinced herself" that her claim that the money was to repay debts was true. She had put forward a detailed list of sums she said she was owed, but that had been compiled after the end of the relationship and not at the time the 225,000 euros was paid, he said.
He found that the 225,000 euros had been entrusted by Mrs Matt to Mrs Fox, who was "as close as a daughter," to put towards a house in England "no doubt for the enjoyment and use of all three of them."
"I am quite satisfied and find as a matter of fact, on the balance of probabilities, that the 225,000 euros paid to Mrs Fox by Mrs Matt was not in respect of part payment of debts owed by Andreas Matt to Mrs Fox," he said.
"On balance, the view I have formed is that it was the mutual intention of both Mrs Matt and Mrs Fox that this large payment was for the purpose of purchase of a house. I am equally satisfied that Mrs Fox knew about this. That is the plausible explanation, rather than the quite implausible case put forward by Mrs Fox."
He ordered that the 225,000 euros be repaid to Mrs Matt, along with interest. As the loser, Mrs Fox will also pay the lawyers' bills for the trial, which have not yet been quantified.
Mrs Matt is already a wealthy woman, having built family business Optik Matt - which sells glasses, contact lenses, frames, sunglasses and hearing aids - from humble beginnings, after founding it with her husband Bernard Matt in 1955. It is now one of Germany's top five eyewear chains, with 82 shops, 450 employees and a multimillion-pound turnover, and is still run as a family business by three of Mrs Matt's children.
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