A seven-year row between three brothers and their sister over their mother’s £1 million inheritance is “out of control”, a High Court judge has said.
David, Nino and Remo Rea have fought with their sister Rita Rea, a tennis coach, since 2017, after their mother Anna Rea left her daughter her home, which made up nearly all her fortune.
A million quid!
handing her the £1 million house in South London at the centre of the battle.
That’s a two up two down terrace these days, no? Seems a bit indelicate to be snarling about such trivia, no?
Anyway, the lawyers will have eaten it all already:
David, Nino and Remo Rea have fought with their sister Rita Rea, a tennis coach, since 2017, after their mother Anna Rea left her daughter her home, which made up nearly all her fortune.
The case has been through the courts five times, running up massive legal bills.
No, that’s gone.
Just another modern expression of the apocryphal story of “Jarndyce and Jarndyce” from Bleak House.
These people are all idiots and their lawyers are knaves.
…but that’s all par for the course.
Since there’s clearly no smoking gun proof that the daughter in any way forced the mother to leave the house to her, or the case wouldn’t have dragged on as it is, the brothers and their lawyers seem pretty despicable to me.
A case of if we can’t have some of it you aren’t having any of it.
I used to listen to a radio lawyer giving advice, he always warned that neighbour disputes are intractable and the only winners are lawyers. That goes in spades for family disputes.
BiND
Irish land ownership disputes, often over areas smaller than a suburban front garden, are notorious for this.
These people are all idiots and their lawyers are knaves.
Indeed. One does wonder about the advice they received from their lawyers. One suspects it was biased in favour of the lawyers.
If the old lady wasn’t sharp enough to make her wishes plain in her will she was no doubt not sharp enough to do anything to mitigate IHT.
Without clicking the link I wonder if one or more of the brothers is a lawyer.
BIS,
“Indeed. One does wonder about the advice they received from their lawyers. One suspects it was biased in favour of the lawyers.”
These cases are generally about clients who don’t listen to their solicitor. In my experience, solicitors will try and find a settlement or tell you to drop it. I mean, these daft fuckers:-
https://metro.co.uk/2023/02/24/couple-lose-160k-court-battle-against-neighbours-over-6ft-fence-18345072/
You might not like being able to get to your stables, but a solicitor is going to tell you that you’ll lose the case.
As they say in Chancery, “nothing left for the beneficiaries to squander”.
Tim, this is why when I die, all my least favourite relatives will be buried alive with me.
Can the winner not claim costs in Chancery court? Or does everything stop when the testatrix’s funds run dry?
@WB
I’m going from experience. The lawyer my father trusted to manage his affairs during his final years, until I showed up & put a spoke in it. Things like charging full hourly rate for paying household bills etc under a PoA he suggested for doing so. He extracted something like 50k from over a 2 year period. Needless to say he was also executor of the estate.
I actually took advice from another lawyer. His opinion was it would have been normal practice to do the “work” on a cost plus basis, because he’d quite obviously done little of it himself. It had been delegated to a junior member of his staff. But the old boy had signed off at various times his satisfaction. He would have done. He trusted lawyers & would have signed anything put in front of him. Bringing a case* against the lawyer would be an expensive & probably fruitless process.
This firm of lawyers had been looking after family affairs right back to the war. My great uncle was very seriously self made rich. And a cunning old bastard. But going through records from after he’d died & my aunt inherited there seems to be pattern of behaviour raises questions. Property that gets sold to known persons very cheap. Leases that are surrendered for no reason I can see. I reckon that firm & its associates has been skinning our family since the early ’70s. Probably to the tune of millions. But that’s trying to piece things together from what I could find. Most of it seems to have mysteriously been disappeared.
Funny thing is, they’re quite famous for completely unrelated fraud. But best not to go into that, eh?
*I believe the technical word’s ‘taxation’, isn’t it?
@Tom
Form the article: “The brothers were then ordered to foot some of Ms Rea’s legal costs, with £119,200 initially and potentially more to follow”
So, yes, the winner can recover (some) costs from the loser. Note that this is recovery – if the loser does not have enough money to pay (or they somehow evade paying such as by fleeing the jurisdiction), the winner ends up having to pay all their own costs. This is why the ariticle continues with: “At the High Court last week, they said they planned to appeal, but Francesca Kaye, the Chancery Master, granted Ms Rea’s request for “final charges” over the brothers’ homes, meaning Ms Rea can apply to have their homes sold if they do not pay.”
@bloke in spain – “I believe the technical word’s ‘taxation’, isn’t it?”
In this context, taxation means assessment of the claimed costs. If the loser disputes the costs, and cannot be persuaded by the winner’s detailed description of what they are, it may be brought before a Taxing Master to decide the appropriate level of costs to be paid. This is separate to the original hearings which decided the case over which costs are in dispute.
Tony Blair and successive prime ministers should be ashamed of themselves that a £1 million house in tooting is not a mansion.
It is depressing how expensive housing is.
It is an essential need and very expensive