Pensioner forced to quit £1.2m home in feud with her son

A 79-year-old woman will be forced out of her £1.2million home after a judge ruled that she cannot share it with the grown-up son she hates.

Elizabeth Ashley had changed the locks on her home in Wandsworth in order to keep out her son Mitchim.

But Judge Diana Faber ruled she had “unlawfully excluded” him from the house that he had mostly paid for and which he half owned.

The judge considered dividing the house, with Mrs Ashley living on the ground floor and her son above. But she said the breakdown of their relationship was so irretrievable that such a move would lead to trouble.

She said the only solution was to force Mrs Ashley to sell up and split the profits with her son, an electrician in his fifties.

Judge Faber said the move was “bound to lead to suffering’” for Mrs Ashley, but said her tenacity in court showed she was “well able to stand up for herself” and was able to cope with moving to “a cheaper part of London”.

The Central London county court heard that Mrs Ashley moved into the house in 1976 as council tenant. She bought it in 2001 for £250,000 under the right to buy scheme after her son agreed to contribute £155,000.

Mr Ashley had lived there since he was 14 but his mother changed the locks in November 2012 and told him to stay away, even preventing him from collecting his belongings.

Mrs Ashley said she had not agreed to a 50/50 ownership split and told the court: “I don’t want him there. Have I no rights as a person? After death, yes, but during my life I don’t want other people living there.”

Judge Faber said Mr Ashley made an “unpleasant tactical attempt” to question his mother’s mental health and he was “less than wholly reliable as a witness”, but that his mother had “told the court substantially more untruths than he did” and her account of events had been “thoroughly undermined”.

The judge laid out a timetable for estate agents to visit the house and removers to retrieve Mr Ashley’s belongings.