A woman has won a share of £9million fortune after her dad favoured her brothers in his will.
Farmer’s daughter Julie Mate, 62, went up against brother Andrew and Robert Mate in court when the pair were given the whole of their parent’s West Yorkshire dairy farm.
She has now received a £652,000 payout from her brothers’ fortune after the land that was left to them went from £300,000 to £9 million.
Julie was told by Robert “you’re not coming back” after she left the home to go to university.
Growing up, she helped to run the farm, even sacrificing her school and social life to help out. She called the the farm work as a child “forced labour” in a letter to her mum in 2014.
Julie was left devastated and dumbfounded” when her dad Donald Mate died in 1992 and left his share of the farm to his wife Shirley and sons, with Shirley, now 89, later also giving her share to the boys.
She believes she and her two sisters being left out of the farm fortune – they left £12,000 each – was down to sexism where the women in the family were left “nowt.”
In a letter to her sister Virginia, Julie complained about a “male-dominated farming tradition.”
She wrote: “To be extremely blunt, given the value of the farm – when dad died, but particularly now – we three have been extremely badly done to.
“You can call it the outcome of a male-dominated farming tradition, bloody mindedness, or simply male chauvinism – whatever it was, and with no disrespect to dad, it really doesn’t wash nowadays.”
Donald and Shirley Mate had been partners in a milk bottling and retail business, run from Fold Farm in Netherton, near Huddersfield, the court heard.
Julie worked to get the land removed from the Green Belt so that it could be built on. This dramatically increased the value of the land but Julie did not get a major share of the rewards.
The farm was struggling at the beginning of the 2000s and Julie began to look at ways it could make money.
She said she was encouraged by her mum from 2007 and looked at the potential for the development of 40 acres of farmland.
Julie said she worked on the project between 2008 and 2015 with a planning consultant and was under the impression that, if it was profitable, she would see an equal share of the rewards.
The local council approved it for housing in 2012, and Julie called Andrew to update him.
She told him she had done the work “on behalf of the girls,” to which Andrew is said to have asked angrily: “What’s it got to do with you?”
“She described it as ‘his typical rant,’ which she understood to mean ‘push off, you silly woman’,” Judge Andrew Sutcliffe KC said.
The judge added the brothers had been “unjustly enriched” as a result.
Julie said the brothers made it clear to her that she should not return to the business after university, even though she wanted to.
She said she has not always had the best relationship with her brothers Robert, now 65, and Andrew, 60, and recalled an incident when a 17-year-old Andrew had driven a Land Rover at her in the farmyard.
Julie also claimed Robert once put his hand around her throat and told her “you’re not coming back.”
Both brothers deny the incidents occurred.
“Although Robert and Andrew denied or did not recall these incidents, I accept that they occurred,” said the judge in his ruling on the case.
“I also accept that from at least this time, and probably before then, the relationship between Julie and her brothers was strained, caused in part by the interest which Julie had shown in the farm and the brothers’ determination that she should not be involved.”
The judge added he thought the original will gave the daughters only “token recognition” for their work.
“In her view, it meant the sisters were subsidising their brothers so that they could have a life on the family farm, which was something she was not given the opportunity to pursue,” he continued.
The land Julie had worked to get valued was included in the council’s Local Plan in 2015, but her mum and brothers agreed a £9million sale to developers Persimmon Homes without telling her.
In response, she executed a deed of trust, giving her son’s beneficial interest in the land and then brought forward a High Court appeal in 2020.
Mum Shirley did not contest.
The judge added: “I accept Julie’s evidence that at no time did she tell either of her brothers or Shirley that she would work on this project for nothing, without expectation of any reward.”
He continued: “Shirley, Andrew and Robert obtained the benefit of Julie’s services, at Julie’s expense, in circumstances where they had notice of the services, they knew that Julie expected a reward for her services, and they could have rejected the benefit, but did not.”
Julie, who studied animal science at university, worked as an agricultural journalist and then as a senior executive in dairy companies and farming organisations.
She now lives in North Shropshire with her partner Tom Biggins.
