Legal setback for cowshed Cinderella parents

A Welsh farming couple have suffered a setback in their bid to overturn a ruling ordering them to pay £1.3m to their estranged daughter.

Last month Tegwyn and Mary Davies were told they had to pay daughter Eirian Davies £1.3m in compensation in an inheritance battle for Caeremlyn Farm, near Whitland, Carmarthenshire. Now their first chance to appeal against the decision has been thrown out by an appeal court judge and they have been told to pay the compensation in full within one year.

The case first hit the headlines when Eirian Davies – dubbed the “Cowshed Cinderella” – won the compensation deal at a hearing in February.

See also: Farmer’s daughter awarded £1.3m from parents

Eirian claimed that, after working for 30 years on the 320ha unit, either unpaid or at a low pay, she had been told she would inherit the entire £3.8m farm business as a reward.

But the details of her parents’ will showed the business had been divided equally between Eirian and her two sisters, who had not been expected to work on the farm. 

The bitter court feud that followed, concluded with parents Tegwyn and Mary losing the case.

In a bid to persuade a judge to allow them to appeal the ruling the couple had returned to court on Wednesday (18 March).

At the hearing, the judge refused the Davies’s application but, because of the timescale for appealing, it emerged that they had submitted a paper application for leave to appeal.

If that application is also turned down, they have one final opportunity to make an oral application for leave to appeal.

The court on Wednesday gave the Davies’s until 18 March 2016 to pay Miss Davies the £1.3 million in full. Interest payments of 8% will be payable on that sum after six months.

The judge also ordered the Davies’s to pay their daughter’s legal costs. Although the sum has not been disclosed they will have to pay £80,000 on account within one month. A stay has been granted until a decision is made on their Court of Appeal application.