Promises and probate: when is “detriment” worth the family farm and what happens when a promise is only relied on for a defined period?

Scott v Scott [2025] EWHC 2796 (Ch) is, at first glance, a familiar tale in the rural Chancery canon: a multi-generational farm; an assurance made in more harmonious times; a later change of testamentary heart; and a claimant who says he shaped his life in reliance.

Whilst many will think they have seen this play before, as with so many cases that begin in well-worn furrows, the interest lies in the details. The court’s approach to time limited reliance, the weighing of monetary advantages against non financial sacrifices, and the framing of unconscionability where circumstances have changed all provide useful insight into how claimants, defendants and their lawyers should consider, analyse, and might ultimately prove detriment.

Case Summary

Richard Norman Scott died in 2018 leaving a substantial farming estate in Cheshire and a complicated family history including at least 19 children from a variety of relationships and from Richard’s two marriages. There are three distinct strands to the dispute: 

• the proprietary estoppel claimed to have arisen based on assurances reflected in a 1995 will that promised long-term agricultural tenancies and an option to buy at probate value;
• the probate challenge to two 2016 wills based on lack of capacity and knowledge and approval; and
• the allegation, advanced by Jennifer (Richard’s second wife, widow and mother of seven of his children) that two agricultural tenancies granted in 1988 and 1993 (which both enjoyed long term security of tenure under the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986 and had a significant impact on the valuation of the freehold of the land demised under them) were shams.

After a lengthy trial, the court rejected all three claims, making detailed findings on the timing and scope of assurances, the evidential weight of contemporaneous medical and solicitor evidence, and the legal test for shams.

Whilst each of these findings would warrant extended evaluation, this week’s edition of Field Notes focuses on the proprietary estoppel allegations and how the Court approached the detriment that was claimed to have accrued.  

Proprietary estoppel

The key components of a proprietary estoppel claim are: 

• An assurance of sufficient clarity;  
• Reliance by the claimant on that assurance;  
• Detriment to the claimant in consequence of their reasonable reliance;  
• As a result, in the circumstances it would be unconscionable for a promise not to be kept either wholly or in part.  

These are all addressed in more detail in our article on another recent farm based proprietary estoppel claim, Maile v Maile, which can be found here.

In Scott v Scott, the proprietary estoppel strand turned on assurances embodied in Richard’s valid 1995 will.  In plain terms, that will promised Adam two key benefits if he continued to work in the family farming business: first, 40 year agricultural tenancies over specified farm land at a rent of £10,000 per year; second, an option exercisable within five years of Richard’s death to purchase those farms at “probate value”, which seemed to have been intended to provide Adam with a significant discount to open market value.

Jennifer’s position was that those 1995 assurances were overtaken by later events – including the birth of numerous additional children – and were expressly withdrawn: Richard made new wills in 2003 and 2007 that did not replicate the 1995 scheme, and, critically, told Adam about the change at the time, so any reliance after 2003 was not reliance on the 1995 promises.  She further argued there was no “net” detriment even within the 1995–2003 window because Adam obtained substantial countervailing benefits causally linked to his role on the farm, including regular payments from Richard, a large financial advantage from the 2002 transfer and remediation of Giantswood (acquired for £500 and improved at modest cost but worth around £300,000 by 2003), agricultural subsidies, and a 50% share of both declared and undeclared profits from a lucrative car boot business.  

Adam’s response was that the 1995 will reflected clear promises on which he reasonably ordered his working life; that he was not told in 2003/2007 that those promises were withdrawn and so continued to act in reliance; and that detriment must be judged holistically, giving real weight to non monetary harms, years of long hours, loss of autonomy, and strains that contributed to the breakdown of his marriage, such that it would be unconscionable for the estate to resile from the assurances.

Before reaching a conclusion on detriment, the Court will focus only on the period of reliance and will seek to weigh up detriments and benefits.

Time-Limited Reliance

Adam’s view was that the exercise of weighing up benefits and detriments must be conducted on the basis that he has suffered a “whole life” detriment of the kind summarised by Lord Briggs in Guest v Guest:

“… the gut-wrenching realisation of being deprived, and then actually being deprived over the rest of a lifetime, of an expected inheritance of land upon which the promisee has spent the whole of his life and work to date…”

The judge was unmoved by this, stating that the:

“promises on which Adam relied were operative for some eight years. This is not a case in which Adam experienced the “gut-wrenching realisation” described by Lord Briggs on finding out, late in the day, after it was too late to do anything else, that promises had not been honoured. Adam was told in 2003 that the promises were being withdrawn for understandable reasons.”

The judge found that Richard made no further promises about Adam’s future ownership of the farm after he withdrew the original promises in 2003. In making this finding, the Court rejected the submission that Adam could fairly continue to act in reliance after 2003. The reliance, therefore, only ran from 1995 to 2003 and, the exercise of weighing up benefits against detriments was only relevant for that period.

Detriment v Benefit

In evaluating the detriments that Adam suffered, the judge observed that Adam “worked long hours at the Farm, forgoing the opportunity to pursue a more comfortable and less time consuming career which would have offered him a more independent lifestyle”. Adam contributed to not only the “physical work” but also “time and energy put in towards planning permissions”. The judge found that working at the farm was a contributing factor to the “failure of marriage to Melanie”.

In discussing the detriments, the judge acknowledged that some of the detriments that Adam suffered were incapable of being expressed in financial terms. In doing so, the judge faithfully applied the modern approach that:

• non-financial disadvantages can constitute detriment without requiring precise quantification;
• but, where reliance has generated both disadvantages and financial gains, the court must weigh them and is not obliged to treat unquantifiable detriment as a trump card.

In Winter v Winter [2024], the Court of Appeal stressed that detriment is an evaluative judgment: “…when deciding whether a claimant has suffered detriment as a result of reliance on an assurance, the court must weigh any non-financial disadvantage against any financial benefit, even where the disadvantage is not susceptible to quantification. The exercise may be a difficult one, but it still has to be undertaken…”

The benefits that the judge considered included the fact that “from 1997-2012, Richard paid Adam £1,000 per month for working on the farm” coupled with Adam only needing to pay £500 to acquire Giantswood and spent a modest amount (c£50,000) improving it. Despite the minimal acquisition and improvement costs, Giantswood generated significant agricultural subsidies. Finally, Adam received “50% of profits from car-boot sale”. Although some of the very large realisations post dated reliance, the court treated the core value creation and benefit from Giantswood as relevant in assessing detriment. 

The court concluded that detriment did not outweigh benefit during the reliance period; hence there was no “sufficiently substantial net detriment” and a successful estoppel claim could not be established.

Takeaways

Key points to note from Scott ‘s decision on proprietary estoppel include:

• Non financial loss and time limited detriment:
  The court accepted that the claimant made real, life shaping choices between 1995 and 2003, but decided that the financial benefits he later received outweighed those harms. Even if reliance is limited to a particular period, it can still affect a claim; in this case, however, the judge found that any detriment was offset by the gains. The law (following Winter and Spencer) recognises that losing the chance to pursue other options can itself be a serious detriment. Notably, the judge also considered some major benefits, such as the later Giantswood uplift, that stemmed from actions taken during the reliance period, even though those benefits only materialised after that period ended.
• Unconscionability
  The judge treated both a change in circumstances and a later windfall, which arose from the realisation of development potential, as part of its unconscionability analysis. What was particularly interesting in Scott was that very substantial gains emerged long after the reliance period but had been made possible by steps taken during that period. Those later uplifts played a central role in the Court’s assessment of both unconscionability and detriment.

How we can help

The team here at Charles Russell Speechlys regularly advise on estate and succession planning as well as in relation to proprietary estoppel and contentious probate matters.  If you’re keen to make succession plans to avoid the risk of future contention, want to understand how your property is held or are concerned about a future or current proprietary estoppel claim (or other dispute) the team of agricultural and landed estate lawyers here at Charles Russell Speechlys, including contentious and non-contentious specialists, would be happy to help.

Field Notes is Charles Russell Speechlys’ weekly agricultural law blog, sharing plain-English insight into the legal and policy issues affecting agriculture, agricultural land and rural business life. From hints and tips on avoiding agricultural disputes, pitfalls to keep an eye out when planning for tenancy or family agri-business succession, to the latest agricultural legislative or policy changes and the most interesting farm-related court decisions, Field Notes makes the complex more understandable, always grounded in the realities of life on (and off) the land.

Field Notes comes out every Wednesday. Previous editions of Field Notes include:

• Farming on a handshake? What happens when things go wrong?
• Harnessing the Law: Equine Impoundment and Fly-Grazing Challenges
• What do agricultural landlords and workers need to know about the Renters’ Rights Act?
• Maile v Maile – Assurances and Detriment Under the Microscope in Family Farm Claims
• Family farm and the family firm: When sibling rivalry becomes unfair prejudice