Farmer Andrew Guest was disinherited from the family farm, Tump, in Monmouthshire, despite having worked there since leaving school at 16.
He brought an action based on proprietary estoppel, where legal rights to a property exist if a claimant can prove they have been ‘given a clear assurance’ they will inherit and have relied on it, even if nothing is put in writing.
The High Court awarded him a clean break lump payment of 50% of the value of the dairy farm and 40% of the value of the farm buildings. The parents appealed on the basis this would require them to sell the farm. They argued that relief should be calculated on the basis of detriment suffered rather than on the basis of expectation.
Ruling in Guest v Guest [2022] UKSC 27 last week, the Supreme Court held it is the repudiation of the promised expectation which is the unconscionable wrong. Therefore, the correct approach was to look at the son’s expectation of inheritance rather than the detriment-based approach put forward by his parents.
However, it partially allowed the parents’ appeal on the High Court’s overall remedy. The justices held the parents have two choices to fulfil the promisee’s— their son’s— expectation: either pay him a reduced sum now or hold his share of the farm on trust for him for their lifetimes.
Polly Ridgway, senior associate at Clarke Willmott, which represented Andrew Guest, said the Supreme Court had prevented a ‘clear injustice and, as a result, Andrew will receive his inheritance promised to him’.
Laura Phillips, senior associate at Kingsley Napley, said the decision ‘demonstrates the wide discretion that the court has to provide remedies that would help achieve equity between the parties’.
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