Family row over $168m ancestral estate left earl needing therapy

London: The Earl of Yarmouth has claimed that a row with his family over an £85 million ($168 million) ancestral estate left him needing therapy.

William Seymour has been involved in a public spat with his parents, the Marquess and Marchioness of Hertford, since 2018, when he married his wife, Kelsey, a former Goldman Sachs banker who is now the Countess of Yarmouth.

Ragley Hall in Warwickshire, England.Credit: Alamy

Lord Yarmouth, 32, had expected to inherit the 400-year-old Ragley Hall in Warwickshire, given he was his parents’ oldest son.

But in March 2018, he was told that the house would not be handed down.

The earl’s father, Lord Hertford, 66, told the High Court that in the run-up to the wedding in 2018, their relationship “deteriorated very sharply” after Seymour asked his father to hand over control of the house when he turned 30 in 2023.

The long-running row has made it to court, where Seymour is seeking to dismantle the trusts that control a large part of the Ragley Estate and have them replaced with independent trustees.

He claimed that the “trauma” of having his expectations of taking over the estate at 30 dashed had “upended” his life and that he had needed “professional help and counselling to deal with trauma as a consequence”, the High Court heard.

Earl and Countess of Yarmouth, William and Kelsey Seymour. He is suing for ownership of his parents’ Ragley Hall.Credit: DT Weekend

But lawyers for his parents and three siblings say he has behaved in an “unreasonable and vindictive” manner, and they want the trusts left undisturbed, while those running the family trusts – the Ragley Trust Company Ltd and Seymour Trust Company Ltd – deny bias.

The Seymour family, which indirectly descends from Jane Seymour, Henry VIII’s third wife, has had its family seat at Ragley for about 400 years.

The 2600-hectare estate includes a 110-room Palladian mansion designed by Robert Hooke, working farms, businesses and properties, as well as woods and hundreds of acres of parkland, although the two trusts do not run the house itself.

Seymour, who the court heard had already been passed estate land and property worth more than £4 million by the time he was 21, had “little interest in the estate or the trusts” until 2017, the family’s barrister Richard Dew said.

Lady Hertford brings her son, Henry Jocelyn Seymour (the current Lord Hertford), to the garden of Ragley Hall to watch her husband and his two teenage servants doing a spot of gardening. Credit: Alamy Stock Photo

But after getting together with his financier wife, he “started to assert himself”, asking to be given financial information about the estate and to attend management meetings, Dew said.

Seymour complained that his ideas about how the estate should be run were being disregarded and claimed his wife had been “disrespect[ed]” after she was not invited to a trustee meeting.

At the same time, relations with his family worsened after he sent an email to his mother in which he suggested his father was “incapable”, Dew said.

William Seymour’s parents, Lady and Lord Hertford.Credit: ragley.co.uk

Tim Sherwin, barrister for the two family trusts, claimed Seymour had sparked conflict with his father by initially raising the topic of his succession as the eldest son and heir.

“[Lord Hertford] says he was disappointed with William’s lack of achievements, and that the tipping point in their falling-out was a letter from William sent on July 25, 2018 to [Lady Hertford] questioning [Lord Hertford’s] mental capacity,” Sherwin said.

Seymour attended Cirencester Agricultural College but left after a year, the court heard, and has not obtained any professional or other qualifications since.

He runs a craft elderflower liquor distillery from part of the estate with his wife.

Ragley Hall.Credit: ragley.co.uk

He insists that the problems between him and his parents started after they appeared to stage a “volte-face” by dashing his hope and expectation that he would inherit the estate while still a young man.

He said he had been shocked to receive an email from his Brazilian-born mother, Beatriz, in March 2018, in which she told him: “As you know, darling, there are no funds available for supporting two generations at the same time and you should prepare for that.

“There are no obligations as to when or what is handed over. Ragley was passed to your father when he was 33 because your grandfather, then 61, saw fit.

“Nowadays, retirement happens later and people live longer. Our concern is you don’t seem to be taking it all in; as if you were somehow expecting Ragley to fit within your needs.”

Seymour claimed he has never been given an explanation of their decision and that, as a result, his “position, circumstances, and needs had been changed profoundly in 2018”.

Dew said that since 2018, Seymour had done “many things which on any basis would make the trustees cautious in their dealings with him”.

These acts included litigation over the Ragley Woodland, in which Seymour sued the trusts to force them to release a large parcel of estate woodland to him, blocking access and “trying to obstruct and disrupt estate events”, he said.

An interior view of Ragley Hall.Credit: ragley.co.uk

‘Hostile and inflammatory emails’

There had also been incidents in which he “surreptitiously recorded meetings and calls, both with the trustees and with staff members”, Dew said.

Sherwin, the trusts’ barrister, told the judge that “for the early part of his life and probably up until at least 2017, the claimant was regarded by his parents and siblings as the likely successor to the assets owned by Lord Hertford”.

But “in 2017 and 2018, the claimant began to assert himself in a way that, in hindsight, may have been designed to engineer a breakdown in family relationships.

“Whether that was the intended outcome, that was what happened, the culmination seeming to be an extraordinary email sent by the claimant to his mother suggesting that his father was incapable,” he continued.

“These emails were hostile and inflammatory documents, and the claimant must have realised that they would cause enormous upset and anger.”

Paul Burton, Seymour’s barrister, told the court: “This is not a family dispute. This is a claim against the trustees for their removal.

“That the relationship of trust and confidence between the claimant and the trustees has irretrievably broken down is beyond argument.

“There is no prospect of these outstanding matters being resolved while the trustees are in office.”

Dew said removal of the trustees would be to the detriment of the estate, as their years of experience and personal relationships with the staff would be lost and fees for replacements would be more expensive.

Judge James Brightwell has finished hearing the case and will give his ruling at a later date.

The Telegraph, London