Car Boot King's £43m Fortune Sparks Family Feud

The estate of Richard Scott, a multimillionaire who died aged 81 in 2018, is at the centre of a fierce legal dispute. Scott, who fathered 19 children and amassed his fortune running the UK's second-largest car boot sale from his vast Cheshire farm—once the set for ITV's Car Boot Challenge—left behind a fortune officially valued at £7 million, though it may be worth up to £43 million based on private offers.

His eldest son, Adam Scott, 62, claims he devoted four decades of his life to working on the farm—starting at age nine—based on his father's promise that he would one day inherit it. However, after Richard married his former cleaner, Jennifer Scott, in 2016—28 years his junior—he rewrote his will, disinheriting Adam and appointing Jennifer as executor and primary beneficiary.

Adam is now suing Jennifer, 60, alleging that his father lacked mental capacity when he signed his final two wills. Richard had been diagnosed with dementia in 2011, which reportedly impaired his ability to make decisions and communicate by the time of the 2016 marriage—a ceremony Adam disrupted on the grounds that his father lacked capacity to consent.

Adam's legal team, led by Constance McDonnell KC, is asking the court to enforce the terms of a 1995 will that granted Adam a 40-year tenancy of the farm and the option to buy it at probate value. McDonnell argues there is "very extensive" evidence that Adam was promised the land and that breaking that promise is "unconscionable."

Richard Scott had 19 children—six with his first wife, six more during that marriage, and another seven with Jennifer, with whom he began a relationship in 1994. Several children had expectations of an inheritance.

Jennifer's sons, Gordon and William Redgrave-Scott, along with Adam's sister, Rebecca Horley, were named beneficiaries in the newer wills.

Jennifer's lawyer, Alex Troup KC, claims Richard had valid reasons for excluding Adam. In 2013, Adam attempted to have his father sectioned, and in 2015, reported him to social services for allegedly abusing Jennifer and their children. These claims were investigated and dismissed, but the incidents reportedly caused a serious rift between father and son.

Troup further stated that Adam had already received land and property worth over £10 million from his father during his lifetime, and that Richard had adequately compensated him for his work on the farm through substantial lifetime gifts.

The legal proceedings are ongoing.

E&K Solicitors