Family locked in row over £12.3MILLION inheritance after dad left sons £5.8m each… but their siblings got £325,000
A FAMILY is locked in a £12.3million inheritance row after a dad left two of his sons £5.8m each – but gave their siblings just £325,000.
Reg Bond transformed a car parts business into a £55m rubber tyre empire before turning his eye to racehorse breeding and training.
He produced a number of winning horses, many of which shared his family name, before his death aged 77 in March 2021.
Reg gave away much of the fortune prior to his death, but now his four children are battling in court over what remains of his estate and the validity of his last will.
In November 2019, his final handed nearly all of his remaining £12.3m to Charlie, 43, and Graham, 52, who is known as Greg.
However, their older brother Mike, 53, and sister Lindsay, 55, were left with just £325,000.
Mike and Lindsay are fighting their brothers in the High Court claiming their dad’s 2019 will is invalid as he was too ill to understand what he was signing.
The two eldest siblings say they were “dumbfounded” when they found out the contents of the will.
They argue there was a “plan” to keep the new will “secret” from them and the circumstances of its making were “highly suspicious”.
Mike and Lindsay have also accused Charlie’s wife, solicitor Kate Atkinson-Bond who often joined Reg at racecourses, of being “heavily involved” in the changing of the will.
But Charlie and Greg have rubbished the claims and say their dad’s mind was fine and that doctors’ records prove it.
Instead, the brothers say there was a rift between their dad and Lindsay in his final months.
They accuse their sister of “penny pinching” and “undermining Reg’s independence”.
London’s High Court heard Reg turned misfortune on its head after he was blinded in one eye by a shard of flying metal when he was working as a mechanic aged 22.
He used the £350 of compensation he received after suffering the injury to set up a car parts business alongside his dad at a small garage in Pocklington, Yorkshire, in the 1960s.
The small firm would eventually be developed into Bond International Tyres, subsequently becoming one of the UK’s largest wholesalers and selling over five million tyres a year.
As his business grew, Reg turned his hand to becoming a childhood dream of buying his first horse Bond Boy in 2002 – which went on to win the Steward’s Cup.
He went on to produce a string of winners from his stud farm at Yapham Mill, in Pocklington, including the 2004 Duke of York Stakes winner Monsieur Bond.
Reg also made headlines when he paid £125,000 to have his star breeding mare Forever Bond mated with unbeaten flat race legend Frankel in 2014.
FAMILY FEUD Mum and daughter locked in bitter row over £7.5m inheritance after dad left behind house and farm when he died
A MUM and daughter are locked in a bitter row over a whopping £7.5million inheritance.
Angela Heyes, 48, says she and her parents had an agreement that she would get their house and farm when they died.
She claims that as a result she and her husband Neil, 46, packed up their lives in Surrey and moved to Cornwall in 2014.
However, her mum Sarah Holt says that was never the deal – and the family is now battling each other in court.
The £7.5m row ensued after Angela’s dad Patrick Holt died in 2020.
The 48-year-old had argued that her mum and dad had agreed she and her husband would inherit the entire 60-plus-acre farm – which doubles up as a glamping business with on-site yurt.
But tragedy struck in 2010 when Reg was diagnosed with a brain tumour, before wife Betty died in five years later.
The court heard Reg began estate planning in 2017, handing over a total of £43.45m worth of shares in R&RC Bond Wholesale Ltd, the family firm behind Bond International, equally to his four kids.
The gift amounted to 80% of Reg’s shares in the company.
In 2017, he made a will dividing most of the rest of his fortune – amounting to £12.3m, which included the rest of his shares – also equally between his kids, with Charlie getting his horses.
But in 2019, two years before his death, he made a final will in which he handed his remaining £11m shareholding in the company to Charlie and Greg alone.
The remaining £1.3m of his estate was divided equally, leaving Mike and Lindsay around £325,000 each and their younger brothers £5.825m each.
Lawyers for Mike and Lindsay Bond say their dad “lacked testamentary capacity” when he made the last will in November 2019 – highlighting that he’d been living with a brain tumour since 2010.
The court also heard Reg suffered from a fall in his garden in 2014 which led to pneumonia and other serious complications, leaving him needing “full-time care”.
They want the court to overrule the 2019 will and reinstate the previous will from 2017.
But giving evidence at the High Court, Charlie’s wife Mrs Atkinson-Bond said she’d not been made aware of any concerns over Reg’s mental capacity when drawing up the will.
She admitted she was not speaking with Lindsay at the time as her sister had “turned against me”.
Mrs Atkinson-Bond said she went to see Reg with a draft tenancy agreement in March 2019 when working for Duncan-Rann Associates.
But she didn’t have Reg sign the paperwork after growing concerned over being a family member advising on legal documents and wished to have “someone else present”.
Lawyers for Mike and Lindsay accused Mrs Atkinson-Bond of showing a “lack of curiosity” over Reg’s final will.
But she responded that the situation was “uncomfortable” and “didn’t want to know any information at all” regarding the will.
Penelope Reed KC, representing Mike and Lindsay, told the court “there is a real suspicion” that what ended up in the final will did not represent Reg’s wishes.
She added: “There was quite clearly a plan to keep everything secret from Mike and Lindsay.
“We don’t plead fraud or conspiracy. We just say that these were suspicious circumstances.”
Mike and Lindsay say they had been given “no indication” their dad had any problems with them and continued to visit him with their families.
Clare Stanley KC, for Charlie and Greg, said Reg’s health was improving before the will had been signed and he had “an active social life”.
The trial, set to last around three weeks, continues.
How inheritance rules work
In the UK, a person can leave their assets or “estate” to any individual or organisation they desire.
But the person must create a valid will in which they specifically stipulate how they want their money, property and other possessions to be handled.
If someone in the UK dies without will, their estate will be passed to the Crown if no potential relatives are traced within 12 years.
The next of kin does not automatically inherit the estate and will have to prove their relationship along with evidence there is no other closer next of kin to the deceased.
This ordinarily achieved through providing a birth or marriage certificate.