https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15238503/Multimillionaire-car-boot-king-cleaner-43million-estate.htmlMultimillionaire car boot king's cleaner who was left his £43million estate wins battle to keep it after High Court victory against his son
London's High Court heard the dispute regarding late father-of-19 Richard Scott
By AIDAN RADNEDGE, SENIOR NEWS REPORTER
Published: 13:34, 29 October 2025 | Updated: 16:20, 29 October 2025
The former cleaner to a multimillionaire car boot king has won a court fight with his 'golden boy' son over who inherits his £43million fortune. Richard Scott, a father of 19 who died aged 81 in 2018, made a fortune running the UK's second biggest boot fair from his Cheshire farm, where ITV's Car Boot Challenge was filmed. Mr Scott's eldest son and 'favourite' Adam Scott described as his dad's 'golden boy' said he sacrificed his life to work with his father side-by-side from the age of nine and was promised it would all be his one day. But after the death of Adam's mother, Richard remarried in 2016 to his former cleaner Jennifer Scott who was 28 years his junior and younger than his son. He then wrote Adam out of his will, leaving Jennifer in control of his estate and farmland, which she said could now be worth up to £43million. The will ended up at the centre of a High Court fight earlier this year when Adam, 62, sued his 60-year-old stepmother as executor of his father's estate, claiming Richard was not in his right mind when he signed his two final wills. He also claimed his father promised he would have the right to take over the farm and that he sacrificed everything to commit to 'a life of hard and unrelenting physical work' on the back of those promises. But lawyers for Mrs Scott insisted Richard knew what he was doing when he disinherited his first born after Adam's relationship with his father 'completely broke down' when he tried to get Richard sectioned. They also told the court Adam had no claim to his father's estate on the basis of the alleged promises, having already been handed land and property worth more than £10million before Richard's death. Now, delivering judgment following a trial in July, Mr Justice Richards has dismissed both strands of Adam's claim leaving widow Jennifer in control of Mr Scott's massive multimillion-pound estate. The judge said that while he accepted Mr Scott had been suffering from a degenerative brain condition when he wrote former favourite Adam out of his wills in 2016, the decision had been 'the product of a personality type that disliked being thwarted' rather than 'one that involved his normal human instincts and affections being perverted by his mental disease'.
He also dismissed the claim based on Mr Scott's promises to his son to leave him the whole of his land. Mr Justice Richards found that while they had been made, Adam knew his father intended to go back on them since 2003 but had continued to work on the farm and in any case had suffered no detriment. During the trial, the court heard that 'mercurial character' Richard was 'a ruthless, single-minded and highly successful businessman who built up a valuable property empire' before switching to running giant and lucrative car boot sales. He fathered 19 children, lawyers for Jennifer told the court six with his first wife, plus six illegitimate children during that relationship, followed by another seven with Jennifer. She had been working as his cleaner when the pair first got together in 1994. Richard and Jennifer eventually married in 2016 just two years before his death in a controversial marriage disrupted by Adam trying to prevent the wedding going ahead, claiming his father did not have the mental capacity to marry. Alex Troup, representing Jennifer, told the court: 'It is common ground that on 22 April 2016 Adam attended the registry office and alleged that Richard lacked capacity to marry. That led to Richard being interviewed by four registrars and a lawyer from the local council, all of whom were satisfied that he did have capacity to marry. The wedding therefore went ahead.'
By the time he died of cancer, Richard owned 'a huge quantity of land' around Chelford, Cheshire, which has been officially valued for probate at about £7million. But Mrs Scott has said it was worth £43million based on offers she has received and development potential. Adam's lawyers said he spent more than 40 years helping his father run the 'vast, sprawling' farm and managing the car boot sales he held on part of it. He also told of being in line to inherit it on the basis that he would pay the probate value of the land, with that cash then to be split amongst his many siblings. But in 2016, just months after his second marriage, Richard signed the two wills which disinherited Adam and left Jennifer in control of his wealth as executor and a major beneficiary. Jennifer's two sons Gordon and William Redgrave-Scott and Adam's sister Rebecca Horley were also made beneficiaries of the last wills. Adam challenged the validity of the two final wills on the basis that his father lacked mental capacity at the time they were made and he also brought an alternative claim under the law of proprietary estoppel. That is a legal remedy that can be used when a landowner has promised property will be transferred to someone else at a later date only to later go back on the promise. Constance McDonnell, for Adam, told the judge: 'At the heart of this case is a relationship between a father and a son, their shared devotion to the family farm in Cheshire, and a recognition by the father of his son's willingness to commit to a life of hard and unrelenting physical work. This case is a paradigm example of a dedicated child's claim to a farm, pursuant to a parent's promise of inheritance. Adam seeks a remedy equivalent to the provision made for him by his father Richard in a will dated 23 June 1995, which implemented the promises made to Adam. On those terms, Adam would acquire a 40-year tenancy of his father's farm and an option to purchase the farm at its probate value. In a case like the present, where decades of work and life-changing decisions have been made in reliance on a promise, the conscience of the court should be shocked.'
Turning to Richard's mental state when he made the 2016 wills, the barrister said Richard had been diagnosed with brain disease fronto-temporal dementia in 2011 and had been hardly able to communicate by the time they were signed. She added: 'Richard's medical records include clear evidence of his ability to make decisions and to have insight having been eroded by his dementia. Adam submits that there can be no presumptions in favour of his father's knowledge and approval of the September and December 2016 wills. By this time, his dementia had left him incapable of speaking more than an occasional word. He sought to communicate in writing and by gestures, but could write no more than a few words or numbers. Jennifer acted as Richard's "translator", purporting to explain what he intended to others.'
But for Jennifer, Mr Troup told the judge that Richard had good reasons for cutting out Adam including a visit by police and medics to the farm to consider sectioning him in 2013, which was said to have been prompted by his son. Mr Troup said: 'In July 2015, Adam alleged to social services that Richard was beating Jennifer and the children. That led to an investigation by social services, which was eventually closed. Richard was angry with Adam for reporting him to social services and their relationship deteriorated as a result.'
In relation to the proprietary estoppel claim, the barrister told the judge that Adam had already been handed land and property worth more than £10million by his father before he died. Giving judgment and addressing Adam's claim that the wills were invalid for lack of mental capacity, Mr Justice Richards said Mr Scott's decision to disinherit his son was prompted by disgruntlement at his former 'golden boy' rather than his dementia. The judge said: 'Richard's FTD increased his pre-existing tendency towards poor impulse control. I have therefore considered whether Richard's decisions in the disputed wills were an absurd action occasioned by his FTD. However, I do not consider that his decisions were the product of his FTD. Rather, they were the product of a personality type that disliked being thwarted and engaged in careful measurement of how much his family members "deserved" by reference to whether they had sought to thwart him or not. That personality type was not always conducive to kind decisions, as I have concluded throughout this judgment. However, it was not an aspect of Richard's FTD or any other disorder of mind. Richard necessarily had to give instructions for the disputed wills with someone on hand to help with the process of communication. When he was in the presence of medical and legal professionals, Richard was able to adjust his behaviour, which had the effect of tempering his poor impulse control. It would have taken time for Richard to give his instructions. He had the opportunity, therefore, to reflect on his instructions and, in my judgment, his decision not to make any significant provision for Adam cannot be explained as one that involved his normal human instincts and affections being perverted by his mental disease.'
Dismissing the proprietary estoppel claim, the judge found Richard's promises over the farm had been withdrawn, Adam had suffered no 'net detriment' in relying on them and the resultant situation in which Adam finds himself is not unconscionable. Assurances about the farm's ownership after his death had been made by Richard and recorded in his 1995 will, including granting the opportunity to Adam to secure a 40-year rent of certain farms and the right to buy those farms at probate value. However, the judge found that Richard showed his intention to withdraw these promises in his 2003 and 2007 wills and that Adam was aware of his father's change of heart at that time but kept on working on the farm regardless. Mr Justice Richards also dismissed a counterclaim by Jennifer in which she claimed the two tenancies over land Richard granted to Adam in 1988 and 1993 were shams in a bid to bring those parcels within her late husband's estate. He said Jennifer had not discharged the evidential burden of proving her claim and the tenancies in dispute were genuine.
