Wife in £400m divorce downsizes after eviction

1/2
12 April 2012

A wife at the centre of a £400 million divorce battle has been evicted from her £8,666-a-month rented home after her estranged husband failed to pay the bill.

Michelle Young, 45, has been forced to downsize to a three-bedroom property in St John's Wood in the latest twist to her bid to obtain half of her husband John's apparently missing fortune.

The pair split in 2006 after 11 years of marriage and are locked in a High Court divorce battle.

Mr Young, 47, was a "fixer" to the super-rich and counted Top Shop boss Sir Philip Green among his acquaintances. The family once enjoyed a lavish lifestyle, based in a £19 million property.

Mr Young insists he is now £28.6 million in debt and cannot pay his wife's demands. But he has been threatened with six months' jail for contempt of court for failing to disclose documents related to his wealth.

Yesterday Mrs Young was formally served with eviction papers requiring her to move with her two daughters, Scarlet, 17, and Sasha, 15, after being unable to pay £23,720 in outstanding rent.

Mrs Young is thought to have moved last weekend to the new property - which costs less than half to rent than the Regents Park home.

A friend of the family told the Daily Telegraph: "The move has been a nightmare, really horrific.

"The girls are at such a critical stage in their schooling so to have had to deal with all this on top has not been fair."

At the eviction hearing last month, lawyer Felix Geiringer told the court: "The fact that she continues to wish to live in a £8,666-a-month rented house, places her children in the most expensive schools, comes to court dressed in very fine clothes, the fact that she makes these choices does not bring her within the realm of exceptional hardship."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in