Count Robin’s rents dispute in court

Contact newsdesk on: info@hebridesnews.co.uk

Count Robin’s rents dispute in court 8/10/14

A legal fight has been launched over the rent income of properties owned by Count Robin Mirrlees.

Patrick de la Lanne, the son of French-born aristocrat, is suing his father’s manager for £186,241 he claims is owed.

Before his death Count Robin, the Laird of Bernera and also the Baron of Inchdrewer, signed an agreement to make Iain Macaulay the business agent for his properties in France, Scilly and Croatia.

Count Robin’s son, Patrick de la Lanne, who is the executor of his late father’s will, claims the agreement was “drafted entirely” by Iain Macaulay and was strongly in his own favour.

Mr de la Lanne - the mayor of the town of Delmenhorst in the north of Germany - maintains Mr Macaulay failed to produce regular reports or accounts of the income from the properties and seeks £186,241 “as a reasonable estimate of the amount due.”

However, a lawyer for Iain Macaulay insist: “The (legal) action is unnecessary and premature.”

In court papers, the solicitor suggests that, under the agreement, Mr Macaulay is “not bound” to Mr de la Lanne and insists no request for accounts were made by him.

Mr Macaulay’s solicitor says his outlays and the rent collected will be detailed in the accounts and will be only be provided when Mr de la Lanne confirms this is all within the terms of the agreement.

However, Sheriff David Sutherland has ordered Mr Macaulay to produce accounts.

At a civil hearing in Stornoway Sheriff Court, the sheriff instructed a procedural hearing be held in December.

According to papers lodged with the court, Patrick de la Lanne solicitors maintain the agreement was drafted by Iain Macaulay - whose address is given as Homecroft Associates, Cheriton, Fitzpaine, Devon - and signed around November 2007 when Count Robin was in “failing health, having suffered strokes and being partially paralysed.

The document says: “He was by that time easily imposed upon and apt excessively to trust individuals who had no particular claim to his confidence.”

Mr de la Lanne’s lawyer claims the agreement allows the man who wrote it to have “sole control of the count’s bank account for the property rentals.”

In addition, Iain Macaulay would get half the profits from the rents “apparently after the defender (Iain Macaulay) had already deducted for himself normal commercial rates of professional fees.”

Iain Macaulay could sell any of the properties and keep half of the surplus proceeds, suggest the legal papers.

The lawyer maintained the contentious agreement was apparently written so Count Robin could only cancel it after eight years after paying ten times the combined gross annual rent of the properties.

It is suggested other clauses in the agreement apparently intend to entrench Iain Macaulay’s position after the count’s death.

Current tenants renting Count Robin’s apartment in Re de la Pompe in Paris pay around £1053 monthly - over £69,000 since they moved in, it is claimed.

Nearly £9,000 of rent has been paid for the property’s separately occupied servant quarters .

About £1,560 is paid every month to Mr Macaulay - £101,400 so far, as rent from a villa in Le Touquet.

Antique furniture valued at least around £31,000 was in the house but its “present whereabouts is unknown,” says the document.

Iain Macaulay paid French land taxes and fees of over £8100 says the document.