Representative Image of a sprawling Yorkshire farm symbolizing the contentious family property at the center of the case (AI Generated Image)
Daughter’s Inheritance Act claim over the family property also fails
A daughter’s attempt to claim part of her late father’s £1.25 million Yorkshire property has failed, after the High Court rejected her claims under his will, the doctrine of proprietary estoppel and the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975. The case, Hodgson v Hodgson [2026] EWHC 922 (Ch), was decided by HH Judge Davis-White KC in the Business and Property Courts in Leeds on 23 April 2026. Anthony Hodgson, known as Tony, died in October 2020 aged 74, leaving property at Slingsby, North Yorkshire. A jointly appointed valuation expert valued the property as a whole at £1,250,000 as of June 2025. His daughter, Jane Hodgson, argued that she was entitled to her father’s half interest in part of the property under his will, or alternatively through proprietary estoppel or the Inheritance Act 1975. Solicitors’ attendance notes from 2013 and 2015 recorded different plans for dividing the property between their children after both parents had died. By October 2015, however, the notes recorded that Tony and Joyce intended to leave their estates to each other first, with land then passing to James and Jane after the surviving parent died. The judge considered those documents alongside the final wording of Tony’s 2016 will when determining what it meant. Jane’s final claim was brought under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, which allows certain family members to seek reasonable financial provision from a deceased person’s estate. The property at the centre of the dispute covers 32.825 acres and includes Wyville Farm, farmland and a number of buildings. A jointly appointed expert valued the property as a whole at £1.075 million as of October 2020 and £1.25 million as of June 2025. Tony’s 2016 will also provided for his residue to pass to Joyce, while the specific gifts of Jane’s Land and James’s Land were conditional on Joyce predeceasing him.
Because Joyce survived her husband, those substitute gifts did not take effect. The ruling therefore left her without the property interest she had sought from her father’s estate. Because she had not established the required causal detrimental reliance, while her claim under the Inheritance Act 1975 also failed, jane’s proprietary estoppel claim failed.
The judge rejected all three claims. The judge also found that the property at issue, apart from Wyville Hall, had been held by Tony and Joyce as joint tenants in law and equity immediately before Tony’s death. That meant Tony’s interest passed to Joyce by survivorship rather than forming part of his estate. The judge rejected Jane’s claim under the Act, alongside her arguments under the will and proprietary estoppel. The judgment separately considers Wyville Hall and James’s Land in determining how the various interests in the property were held and what happened to them after Tony’s death. In its final conclusions, the court found that the relevant property, excluding Wyville Hall, had been held by Tony and Joyce as joint tenants in law and equity immediately before Tony’s death. The case illustrates the difficulty of establishing a claim to family property where informal promises conflict with later legal documents and the ownership structure of the land.
The judgment also examined earlier discussions about the couple’s wills. In reaching his decision, the judge considered Tony’s final will, earlier solicitor’s attendance notes, the legal ownership of the property and the evidence surrounding Jane’s alleged reliance on promises about her future inheritance.