Letter of intent does not give mother interest in father’s property
A mother has failed in a claim that a ‘letter of intent’ signed by her and her child’s father gave her a right to live in a property owned by the father and his former wife, for life.
The mother and father had never married, and their relationship ended before their daughter was born, in 2012. Initially the child lived with the mother, and spent time with the father.
In 2013 the mother obtained an order for financial provision for the child. A term of the order was that the father would settle the sum of £450,000 on trust for the child to provide her with a home, the trust to terminate on her reaching 18 or completing her tertiary education, whichever was the later. The mother was to be a joint owner of the property purchased with the trust money.
In 2014, the court made an order that the child would live with her mother save for specified times when she would live with her father. At this time the mother was living in the North West of England and the father was living in West Sussex.
The financial provision order was not implemented and in 2017 the mother made an application to enforce it.
Thereafter the mother and the father looked into arrangements by which the mother would move to live geographically closer to the father, and also to seek to resolve the mother’s enforcement application. In the course of 2018 the mother moved with the child to an address in West Sussex.
A letter of intent was signed by the parties in December 2018, and solicitors were instructed to prepare documentation to create a trust of a property in West Sussex which was intended to be a home for the mother and the child, subject to a 50-year tenancy at a nominal rent of £21 per month for the mother. The father signed the documentation in February 2019. The mother did not. On 8 March 2019 the father completed the purchase of the property, which he and his former wife held on trust for the child. The mother has lived in the property since it was purchased.
In July 2019 the mother notified the father that she intended to move from West Sussex to Wolverhampton with the child. The father issued an application to prevent the mother from removing the child from West Sussex.
The mother applied for orders permitting her to move with the child to Wolverhampton and to enforce the 2013 financial provision order.
The mother then made her claim based upon the letter of intent, seeking a declaration that she was entitled to live in the West Sussex property for life, or in the alternative the sum of £2,444,000 for breach of contract. The father defended the claim, and applied to have it struck out.
Finally, in 2023 the court ordered that the child should live with the father, and spend limited time with the mother.
The mother’s claim went before Mr Justice Keehan in the High Court. He found that the letter of intent did not create a binding and enforceable contract between the mother and the father.
The purpose of the letter was to provide a home for the child close to where the father was living, and that purpose had been met by the purchase of the property in which the mother and child had lived for many years.
The letter had stated that its contents were ‘without prejudice’ until implemented, and they were not implemented. It also stated that it was to supersede the financial provision order, and yet the mother subsequently sought to enforce the order.
In the circumstances Mr Justice Keehan was satisfied that the mother’s claim had no real or realistic prospect of succeeding, and accordingly it was struck out.
You can read the full report of the case here.
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