Tenant wins 200,000 farm

8 March 2000



Tenant wins 200,000 farm

By FWi staff

A TENANT farmer who was disinherited by his millionaire landlord has won the right to a 200,000 farm and 100,000 in cash.

Geoffrey Gillett, now aged 59, first met gentleman farmer Kenneth Holt, of The Limes, Baumber, Lincolnshire, when he was aged 12.

He dropped out of school against the advice of his headmaster and went to work for Mr Holt when he was aged just 16, the appeal court in London was told.

Mr Gillett worked on Mr Holts farm until November 1995, when there was a “final rupture” in his relationship with the farmer, now aged in his mid-80s.

By that time, Mr Holt had formed a relationship with trainee solicitor David Wood, described by a High Court judge in 1998 as “something of an obsession.”

Mr Holt, who had originally left his entire farming estate to Mr Gillett, made various changes to his will reducing his former friends legacy to nothing.

But Lord Justice Robert Walker said that Mr Holt had over the years given assurances to his farm manager that he would not be forgotten in his will.

The judge ruled that Mr Gillett was entitled to a share in Mr Holts estate.

He will now get 100,000 in cash and the freehold to one of the farmhouses owned by his former patron, plus the land attached to it, valued at 200,000.