'Trespasser' Son Demands £2.6m After Being Kicked Out of Family Residence

A financier launched legal action against his elderly mother after she ordered him out of the family's £3.85 million Chelsea townhouse. Andrew Grijns had lived in his American parents' four-storey Georgian home on Bury Walk for over two decades while building a lucrative career in London's finance sector.

Following his father's death in 2019, he claimed he had been promised two-thirds of the property's value — around £2.6 million — having lived there for many years at a reduced rent. But relations with his mother, 80-year-old Janice Grijns, deteriorated badly. She accused him of "wanting her dead so that he could have the property" and demanded he leave immediately.

The dispute escalated into a High Court fight, with Mr Grijns arguing he had stayed in the house to his own detriment rather than moving on and buying somewhere of his own. He even cited tolerating her "old-fashioned" décor as part of the burden he had allegedly shouldered.

His £2.6 million claim has now been dismissed, leaving him facing a legal bill estimated at more than £1 million. Master Timothy Bowles criticised his conduct, saying: "Andrew has had the opportunity to live in a substantial property in a desirable part of London at very modest cost for the best part of a quarter of a century… Andrew is a person who is entirely self-absorbed and whose paramount concern is entirely for himself."

The court heard that Mr Grijns's parents, Leendert and Janice, purchased the four-bedroom townhouse — complete with a separate basement flat — in 1994. Mr Grijns, one of four brothers, moved in with them in 1999 and remained there happily until falling out with his mother in 2020. He accused her in emails of "vilifying and bullying him," while she retorted that he wanted her death so he could claim the home. The conflict escalated so far that he attempted to have her jailed in 2023.

Master Bowles said Mr Grijns showed no appreciation for the advantages his parents had given him by allowing him to live in the property for so long. Dismissing his claim, the judge ruled that he had been a "trespasser" since August 2023 and ordered him to pay his mother £85,000 per year from that date until he vacates the house — an amount that also covers rent he collected from subletting part of the property.

Broadgate Legal