Aristocrat singer-songwriter Bo Bruce has won a bitter High Court battle against her viscount brother after years of being denied her share of a £2 million inheritance.
The winner of The Voice UK – whose real name is Lady Catherine Brudenell-Bruce – said she is “desperate for money” while her brother, Thomas, Viscount Savernake, has blocked the sale of their historic family home.
Their mother, Lady Rosamund, the former Countess of Cardigan, received the property – Leigh Hill House – in her 2009 divorce from David Brudenell-Bruce, Earl of Cardigan, and split it equally between her children when she died of cancer aged 63 in 2012.
But in the last decade the viscount, who was made administrator of his mother’s estate, has not sold the house nor shared the inheritance with his sister, saying he wants instead to buy the property outright and keep it in the family.
Ms Bruce sued her brother in the High Court, and a judge has now removed him as executor of his mother’s will, concluding: “I don’t accept that the administration of the estate has been or will in the future be carried out properly.”
The court heard Ms Bruce, 37, and her brother, 40, grew up on the family’s historic Savernake Estate, near Marlborough, Wiltshire, which has been in the family since it was gifted to the Brudenell-Bruces’ ancestors by William the Conqueror.
They spent their childhood living at Savernake Lodge, a substantial property on the estate which has the Grade-I listed Tottenham House at its centre, and moved into Leigh Hill House with their mother after their parents’ divorce in 2009.
Ms Bruce’s barrister, Steven Ball, said relations between the siblings had been “fairly amicable” in the aftermath of their mother’s death and Ms Bruce wanted the house to stay in the family.
But she changed her mind in 2015 and emails to her brother and his representatives showed “a desperate need for money”.
The viscount did not want to sell the property and decided he would continue living there while paying £20,000-a-year rent to his sister. Claiming he wanted to ultimately buy her out of her share, he also advanced her regular loans to help cover her living expenses and £11,000 towards her wedding.
Mr Ball said in the years that followed, the viscount did nothing to progress to a buyout or sale, leaving her feeling “locked into ownership” of a property.
Ruling on the dispute, Deputy Master John Linwood said the viscount had “ignored his responsibilities” to his sister, and characterised the feud as “an unfortunate case of sibling distrust”.
“I will remove Tom as executor,” he said. “I don’t accept that the administration of the estate has been or will in the future be carried out properly.
“Whilst in the initial period she wanted to retain the property, her position changed in January 2015. Her emails showed her desperate need for money. Tom, as executor, has taken no action whatsoever to progress the sale or realisation of the property.”
The judge said a debt claimed by the viscount, amounting to more than £600,000, was “clearly an exaggerated sum” and should never have been suggested.
An independent executor will now be appointed, to sell the house which has been valued at up to £2.4 million.
