A squabbling family’s legal costs in a bitter battle over a refurbished property have reached £1 million.
After 44 years of marriage, Pamela Teasdale, 68, informed her husband Daniel, 73, that she wanted a divorce. This sparked a contentious four-year legal fight that “fractured” the family.
According to MailOnline, the mother-of-two wished to remain a resident of Burne Farm in Todwick, South Yorkshire, in order to launch a livery enterprise.
Despite Ms. Teasdale receiving a lump sum payment and Mr. Teasdale’s family having owned and operated the farm for three generations, this continues.
But it was a recently renovated barn their daughter Rebecca Carter, 45, lived in with her husband and daughter that lead to major complications.
Both parents were happy for their daughter and her family to stay at Cow House cottage, which had undergone a major £200,000 revamp.
A row was sparked as Mr and Ms Teasdale and their daughter argued over who could claim legal ownership of the home.
Mrs Carter said she had been paying the mortgage for years, but her mum insisted it was just rent.
The argument became so bitter Ms Teasdale accused her own daughter of planting a listening device in her lounge.
Judge Gordon Shelton said it was a ‘tragedy’ no amicable agreement was reached, and it was ‘one of the most regrettable pieces of litigation he had ever come across’.
A nine-day High Court hearing followed by a two-day appeal hearing, with all three family members represented by expensive legal teams, led to a total legal bill of £1,048,000.
Judge Shelton, backed by the appeal judge Mr Justice Moor, ruled the parents promised the cottage to their daughter.
However, they refused Mrs Carter’s bid to stop her mum’s future livery business because it would ‘disturb their peace’.
The couple remain living under the same roof, with their daughter and her family also on the farming property.
It is still undecided who shall live where.
Mr Teasdale said: ‘My wife asked me for a divorce and I didn’t even know anything about it. There is nobody else involved. It has been such a stressful time, this has been going on for nearly five years.
‘It’s caused so much upset because they were all close, my wife and daughters would spend weekends together with Rebecca having an interest in horses and Penelope with labradors.
‘Now it’s all gone. I don’t know if I will get to keep the farm. We are all in limbo.’