Daughter vs mother in battle of the estate agents
A MOTHER and daughter ‘aired their dirty laundry’ yesterday in a bitter £150,000 court battle over the family estate agency.
Nicola Low, 71, is being sued by Caroline Baines, 40, who claims her mother reduced her salary while she was on maternity leave.
She is also accused of harassing her daughter and making malicious complaints about her to police.
The High Court in London was told Mrs Low did not visit Mrs Baines after she had her baby and could not remember her grandson’s birthday.
In a counter-claim, Mrs Low is suing her daughter for setting up a new agency and allegedly stealing her clients.
The pair ran their lettings agency Halcyon House together until their catastrophic falling- out at the beginning of 2010. Mrs Baines had expected her normal
‘Spiteful and malicious’
four-figure monthly wage but was told she would receive statutory maternity pay like other staff.
From wanting to hand her business to her daughter Mrs Low now ‘wanted to take her out of the equation’, barrister James Purnell said.
To this end, she began ‘nit-picking and looking for problems,’ the lawyer told the court. She allegedly berated her daughter about her work just two weeks after she had an emergency caesarean.
Mrs Low claims they fell out after her daughter ‘ helped herself’ to company money to make up the shortfall in her maternity pay. Mrs Baines denies this.
The feud led to Mrs Baines setting up a rival estate agency in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire. Mrs Low is claiming up to £100,000 from her daughter, alleging breach of contract and failure in her duty as a Halcyon House director.
But Mrs Baines and her business colleague, Sue Mogridge, are counter- suing Mrs Low for more than £ 50,000, claiming harassment, including alleged ‘spiteful and malicious’ complaints to the police and professional bodies.
Appearing in the witness box, Mrs Low was accused of prioritising control of the business over her relationship with her daughter.
‘You wanted to discipline Caroline and remove her. You berated her just two weeks after she had a Csection,’ Mr Purnell said.
‘Your first contact with your own daughter after she had an unplanned caesarean section was to send round a courier to deliver a letter about the business.’ He added: ‘ You don’t even know the birthday of your own grandchild.’
Mrs Low denied the allegations but, when pressed, said she thought Henry’s birthday was February 20. In fact it is the 16th.
She said: ‘I wanted to give the business to my daughter, who I was trying to protect, but I also had a duty to protect the business.’
She added: ‘I very much object to washing my dirty laundry in pub- lic.’ Setting out the mother’s case, Judge Richard Seymour QC said: ‘What Halcyon is seeking is damages for loss of business and the vital thing is whether Mrs Low can prove that contact was made by way of pinching the clients.’
Of Mrs Baines’s harassment case, he said: ‘The daughter says malicious complaints were made spitefully in order to make life difficult.
‘This mother and daughter are entitled, if they cannot resolve their difficulties between themselves, to have their differences settled for them by the court.’
The hearing continues.