A grieving daughter is battling to boot her mother’s millionaire boyfriend out of her dead parents’ house.
Lynn Lewis says 93-year-old Thomas Warner is a ‘trespasser’ in the valuable Gloucestershire home her parents ‘acquired by their efforts and thrift.’
Mrs Lewis’s mother, Audrey Blackwell, bought the detached property in Twyning Green, decades ago with Mrs Lewis’ father.
But after being widowed in the 1990s, Mrs Blackwell formed a relationship with Mr Warner, a wealthy local businessman, and he moved in.
Lynn Lewis has taken the unusual step of suing her late mother’s partner to get him evicted from her mother’s home. A judge has previously ruled he is entitled to continue living there
The couple never married but lived together at the house for 20 years until Mrs Blackwell died in 2014.
Mrs Lewis claims the millionaire encouraged her mother to believe he would move out of the house when she died and she ‘trusted him to be a man of his word’.
But Mr Warner says he has spent the ‘happiest days of his life’ at the house and is refusing to shift. He insists he wants to spend the rest of his days there.
The two are now locked in a ‘highly unusual’ tug-of-war over the house at London’s Court of Appeal.
Bernard Weatherill QC, for Mrs Lewis, told the court that, as her mother’s only child, she had inherited the whole of her mother’s £518,000 estate – including the house – after she died.
Mr Warner was ‘not short of money’ and had not expected to be left anything in Mrs Blackwell’s will, the daughter’s barrister added.
But two months after her mother’s death, when Mrs Lewis served Mr Warner with a notice to move out and hand her the keys, he ‘refused to leave.’
Mrs Lewis launched a possession action ‘on the basis that Mr Warner was a trespasser.’
The daughter says her mother intended her to have this home in rural Gloucestershire
She said his unwelcome presence in her late mother’s house was preventing her grieving properly.
But Mr Warner countered by successfully claiming ‘reasonable provision’ from Mrs Blackwell’s estate.
Such claims are usually brought by impoverished family or loved ones who are left out of wills. Mr Warner’s claim was described as ‘highly unusual’ by lawyers because he was far richer than Mrs Blackwell and, in the belief that he would die first, he had left her a substantial sum in his will.
She has taken the case to London’s Court of Appeal to try to get Mr Warner moved out
But Judge Christopher Gardner QC, sitting at Cheltenham and Gloucester County Court, came down on his side in November 2015.
Judge Gardner ordered the house to be transferred into his name, in return for him paying Mrs Lewis £385,000.
Mr Warner’s need to keep a familiar ‘roof over his head’ meant he qualified as Mrs Blackwell’s ‘dependant’ and was entitled to make a claim on her estate, the judge found.
Mrs Lewis’s challenge to the decision was turned down by the High Court last year, but now she is asking the Court of Appeal to reverse that ruling.
Mr Weatherill said: ‘Mrs Lewis wanted to grieve. She wanted the house to be available to her children.
‘She wanted the chattels within it. She wanted to consider what to do with it.
‘Mr Warner is well able to acquire, through his liquid funds, alternative premises, without depriving her of the right to inherit her parental home.
‘He is a millionaire who has already had the advantage of living in the house of the deceased lady and has come to the court against that background.
‘Mrs Blackwell was aware of her daughter’s concerns that Mr Warner might wish to remain in occupation… her wishes are not irrelevant.
‘The evidence is that Mrs Blackwell intended that her daughter should inherit [the house], the home acquired by her and her late husband’s efforts and thrift
‘The fact [Mr Warner] needed a roof over his head didn’t mean he needed this particular roof over his head,’ the barrister added.
Roger Evans, for Mr Warner, urged appeal judges to uphold the previous decision.
Sir Geoffrey Vos, sitting with Lord Justice McCombe and Lady Justice Asplin, will give their ruling on Mrs Lewis’s appeal at a later date.
But urging both sides to settle their differences, he added: ‘The possibility remains for a resolution which does not cause damage to the parties.’