Family torn apart as son sues own parents in battle over £2.3million family farm
A family has been torn apart after a man sued his own parents in a battle over their £2.3million family farm.
Businessman Sean Preson, 56, says he had a "good relationship" with his parents before he decided to buy a farm with them so he could live there and care for them in a deal struck during a pub Sunday lunch in 2002.
Mr Preson says he and his wife agreed with his parents Ivan and Wendy Preson to go halves on a farm together after a discussion at one of their favourite local pubs in Leicestershire.
But the relationship between Mr Preson and his parents slowly crumbled over the years after they began to live side by side in two houses on Springfield Farm, Huncoate, Leicestershire, in 2003.
Sean claims his 85-year-old father threatened to kick his wife Janina, 55, and their two kids out and "make them homeless" in 2008 whilst he was away.
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But Sean's dad accuses his son and daughter-in-law of being "horrible to us," with Ivan claiming that eventually: "We wanted to get away from Sean and his family."
The two couples are now facing off in the High Court over who is the rightful owner of the farm - with Sean and his wife complaining that they put in half the purchase price but have been left with a share on paper worth just 28% of the total £2.3million value.
Sean claims his father threatened to kick his wife Janina Preson (pictured) (Champion News Service Ltd)
Sean Preson's brother Dean outside the High Court (Champion News SErvice Ltd)During a trial this week, the court heard that when the two couples bought the farm in 2003 each pair put in £300,000 to cover the £525,000 asking price and renovation costs.
It was agreed that Sean and his wife would get a derelict barn, which they renovated into their current £520,000 home, whilst his parents would get the farmhouse, also now renovated and worth £740,000.
The couples, however, are fighting over who owns what share of the rest of the farm.
On paper, Sean's parents own a £923,000 area of land on which Sean built and paid for a stable block and menage for horses, whilst he and Janina own three fields worth £136,000.
But Sean and his wife are suing, claiming the paper position does not reflect the true agreement as first discussed at the Sunday lunch meeting at local watering hole The Nag's Head, in nearby Stapleton.
They say that each couple had put in £300,000 to buy the farm and had agreed to share the land equally. The actual paper ownership ended up skewed in favour of his parents simply because they had split the farmland into chunks to avoid higher stamp duty rates.
They are now asking Judge Robin Vos to rule that all the land should be pooled and split equally, upping the value of Sean and Janina's share to over £500,000 and their total stake in the farm to over £1m.
In the witness box, Sean told the judge that at the time of purchase he was 35, had been married for 14 years and had a son and daughter aged 14 and 10.
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"I had a very good relationship with my mother and my father. They were self-made people. I used to talk to them a lot about business deals.
"I was close to my mother. We never had any real problem until we bought the farm in 2003. Then things started to change.
"The farm was a joint purchase between both families. Each contributed £300,000 in late 2002. We bought the place together because my father had been very ill and in hospital.
"I pulled out of a deal to buy a farm by myself when my dad became gravely ill so I could be there for them in their later lives."
He said they made the agreement with his parents to buy the farm together after enjoying a Sunday dinner together at the Nag's Head, in Stapleton.
"We used to take them out for a Sunday dinner. It was on the way back from there that we first pulled up at Springfield Farm and looked at it," he told the judge.
Sean's barrister, Stuart Benzie, told the judge: "In 2008, it was discovered that the barn was not registered in the names of Sean and Janina. The barn was and is their family home and this discovery caused great concern.
"The issue came to light when Ivan attended the barn when Sean was not present and told Janina that the barn was not registered in their name, and he threatened to make the family homeless.
"Sean and Janina contributed 50% of the cost, with the intention of acquiring 50% of the land, save for the dwellings. In this action all they seek is the fair allocation of the land that they agreed to.
"It was always intended that each couple should benefit equally from their respective contributions. Both parties intended that they would contribute 50% and receive 50%, save for the dwellings.
"Sean and Janina rely on the building of the stables and menage in support of their submissions.
"It is beyond question that Ivan and Wendy have been enriched and that that enrichment was at the expense of Sean and Janina...The enrichment was unjust.
"This is an unfortunate claim: all claims of this nature are unfortunate, and the dispute has emanated from a breakdown in the relationship between a family.
"The court must do justice...to ensure that parties do not make unfair gains by means of the abuse of their strict legal rights."
But Ivan told the judge that the paper's position reflects the true nature of the pub agreement.
He and his wife, 83, are backed in their position by backed by Sean's brother Dean and sister Suzanne Cooke, with Ivan and his wife having put their share of the land in a trust several years ago, to be held equally for the benefit of their three children upon their deaths.
Mr Benzie put to Ivan that he had fallen out with his son when Sean had asserted a right to half the land.
But giving evidence, he denied that and said that not once over the years had his son claimed he had a 50% stake in it.
He admitted he had offered to sell up in 2012 and give Sean and Janina half the proceeds, but told the judge it had been because by then he had wanted to get away from them.
He said he and Wendy had been "upset" at different times by "their outbursts" and accused his son and daughter-in-law of being "horrible to us."
"Sometimes they weren't very nice to us," he told the judge.
"That was the sort of thing we have been living with all of these years."
He added: "Sean and his family were making our lives increasingly uncomfortable.
"We wanted to get away from Sean and his family."
The parents' barrister, Nicholas George, told the judge: "Ivan and Wendy deny that the claimants' version of the agreement is correct, and they say that it was actually agreed that each couple would contribute an equal sum - £300,000 - towards the cost of purchase and development of their respective acquisitions, each couple would solely own their respective dwellings - the barn in the case of the claimants and the farmhouse in the case of Ivan and Wendy.
"The claimants would solely own the three fields, and Ivan and Wendy would solely own the disputed land.
"It is common ground between the claimants and Ivan and Wendy that their agreement, whichever of the two rival versions it was, was never reduced to writing, either by them or by anyone else on their behalves and was purely oral.
"The determination of the true terms of the 2002-03 agreement largely becomes a contest between father and son, with the court having to decide whose word is to be believed - credibility is accordingly of paramount importance," he concluded.
The trial continues.
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