Stepdaughter fighting for share of 'miserly' hotelier's £25m fortune

Will dispute: Francesca Milbour is challenging the will with her aunt Laurel Roberts

A stepdaughter who claims she was unfairly cut out of a “miserly” hotelier’s will is fighting for a share of her £25 million fortune, the High Court heard.

Laurel Roberts, 61, did not receive a penny when her stepmother, Pauline Milbour, died in 2014, and was left £320,000 when her father passed away nine months later.

Mrs Milbour, the owner of a hotel overlooking Hyde Park, had amassed a £16 million estate and a £9 million family home in Bayswater, leaving almost all of it to her natural daughter Luanne Fresco, 51.

But Mrs Roberts, together with her niece Francesca Milbour, 27, are now challenging the will, claiming they are entitled to an £8 million share as “reasonable financial provision” for their future.

Mrs Milbour, who owned the Columbia Hotel at Lancaster Gate, was married to Laurel’s father, Leonard Milbour, for 42 years but left him £150,000 in her will when she died, aged 73, in January 2014.

Almost all of the money was left to Luanne Fresco, 51 
Richard Gittins/Champion News

The will, drawn up in 1993, set out that her daughter, Luanne, and her son with Mr Milbour, Laurence, would receive the bulk of the estate, but Laurence "tragically died" in 2004.

When Mr Milbour passed away later in 2014, he handed the £150,000 left to him plus savings of his own to Mrs Roberts, while Ms Fresco, who now runs the 100-room hotel, received more than 99 per cent of her mother’s vast wealth.

Alexander Learmonth, for Mrs Roberts and Ms Milbour, told the court the hotel owner “hated” her step-daughter and “never regarded her as a child of the family”.

He said that “despite her great wealth and the length of her marriage to Mr Milbour”, she had left her husband a “miserly” sum.

The £9m family home in Bayswater
Richard Gittins/Champion New

Mr Learmonth had made a bid to make legal history by bringing a claim on behalf of the late Mr Milbour, telling the court he would have been able to challenge the will but did not have the chance because of his sudden death.

“Mr Milbour died before it was possible for him to start a claim. He clearly had a strong claim for reasonable financial provision,” the barrister argued.

However, Judge Simon Monty this morning struck out the ground-breaking challenge, saying Mr Milbour’s claim to the estate died with him.

However, he said Mrs Roberts has "a real prospect of success" in proving she had a claim to the Bayswater home, and allowed both women to press ahead with their claim to money from the family fortune.

Mr Learmonth also argued that children from different parents count as “dependants” under inheritance law, adding: “Mrs Fresco cannot say, ‘My mother didn’t like you, so you don’t qualify’.”

Mark Baxter, for Mrs Fresco, disputed the claim, telling the judge: “Laurel is not the child of the marriage between Leonard Milbour and Pauline Milbour. She is a child of the marriage between Leonard Milbour and her own natural mother. Mrs Fresco is Mrs Milbour’s only child and sole personal representative of her estate.”

Judge Monty allowed the dispute to proceed to trial, where Mrs Roberts will claim a stake in the family home and both she and Ms Milbour will argue they are entitled to money from the family wealth.

A trial date has not yet been set.

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