Farmer’s sons blew inheritance in ‘hopeless’ battle to stop stepmum getting extra £25,000 of dad’s cash
Brothers who fought their dad's second wife in court ordered to pick up £200k legal bill
TWO farmer's sons have been slammed by a judge after blowing their entire inheritance on a "hopeless" bid to stop their stepmum getting an extra £25,000.
Richard and Jonathan Powell had claimed their dad David, who had Parkinson's, did not understand what he was doing when he left his second wife Ailsa half his £250,000 estate.
The brothers said an earlier version of their father's will — from which Ailsa would have got £100,000 — was his last true will, and forced the 75-year-old widow to go to court over it.
Judge Marc Dight ruled in her favour and said the middle-aged brothers were "unreasonable" not to accept that their dad and stepmum were a "devoted couple".
Ruling that they should pick up the entire £200,000 legal bill for the case - thereby wiping out their own £125,000 inheritance - the judge blasted the sons for forcing her to go to court.
He said: "She should not have been put to the trouble and expense of proving this claim on the tenuous basis of challenge advanced by Richard and Jonathan Powell.
"My conclusion is that their position has not been reasonable at any point in this litigation.
"Their stance has, it is apparent to me, been driven by personal issues and not by a reasonable inquiry into their father's state of mind."
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Retired Kent farm manager David Powell died aged 84 in 2012 after a 20-year battle with Parkinson's disease, Central London County Court heard.
His death set his second wife of nine years against his sons from his first marriage - Wandsworth financial adviser Richard, 54, and Jonathan, 55, who lives in the US.
Having lost the case, the brothers argued that the £200,000 costs should be paid out of their dad's estate.
But the judge Dight said that would result in everyone losing their inheritance.
He rejected the sons' claim that there was a real doubt about the 2009 will, which left Mrs Williamson Powell, of Littlebourne, Kent, and the sons £62,500 each.
And he said it was no one's fault but theirs that the case had ended up in court, where by the end of the trial they were contesting only £25,000 of their stepmum's inheritance.
The widow's barrister Mark Dencer said the case had only come about because the "avaricious" brothers did not like their dad's wife.
They were simply trying to "enrich" themselves in the hope that the widow would "lack the stomach or means to fight", he claimed.
The brothers had started the case claiming that an even earlier will, under which their stepmum would have got only £2,000, was the last true will.
The judge said: "They should, long before the trial, have recognised the force of the evidence and that their challenge was without hope."
The court heard Mrs Williamson Powell had tried to settle the "uneconomical" case outside court and found it "inexplicable" that it had actually gone to trial.
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