Family takes farm ownership battle to High Court

A businessman is suing his own parents over ownership of a £2.3m Leicestershire farm.

The High Court heard how, in 2002, Sean Preson and his wife, Janina, had agreed to buy the farm jointly with Mr Preson’s parents, Ivan and Wendy.

The two couples initially lived happily next door to each other in two houses on the property. However, their relationship then began to sour, and they are now embroiled in a legal battle over ownership.

The parents currently own the land (worth £923,000) on which Sean built and paid for a stable block and areas for horses, while he and his wife own three fields worth £136,000. Sean and Janina are suing on the basis that this situation does not reflect the family’s original agreement.

According to them, each couple put in £300,000 to buy the farm and agreed to share the land equally. The ownership details then ended up skewed in favour of the parents after the farmland was divided to avoid higher stamp duty rates.

Sean Preson’s barrister, Stuart Benzie, told the court: “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 parents’ barrister, Nicholas George, said: “Ivan and Wendy… say it was 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 case continues.