'Get used to being poor': Judge orders £400m divorce wife to be evicted from £8,000-a-month home



A woman who is seeking half her husband's £400million fortune in a divorce settlement lost her battle against eviction yesterday and was told to get used to being poor.

Michelle Young, 45, must move out of her townhouse in Regent's Park within six weeks or face being forcibly removed by bailiffs.

She had argued that being evicted from the property would cause her and her two daughters 'exceptional hardship'.

'Utterly distraught': Michelle Young leaves court yesterday after she was ordered to leave her luxury £2.8m townhouse. Her husband Scot Young (pictured at an earlier hearing, right), with whom she is locked in a £400m divorce battle



But lawyer Felix Geiringer, representing her landlords, turned on the former model, telling her that if she wanted the court to believe her divorce fight had left her penniless, she should start claiming benefits and find a council house.

Mr Geiringer told Mrs Young it was time for her to face the reality of her situation.

'The fact that she continues to wish to live in an £8,666-a-month house, to school her children in an expensive school, to come to court dressed in very fine clothes - the fact that she makes these choices does not bring her within the realm of exceptional hardship,' he said.

'Nobody in this country needs to be homeless. If she's being evicted then the local council has an obligation to provide her with housing. She has access to benefits, her children can be schooled for free. The fact is that she is not seeking benefits that are available to her.'



Mrs Young is at the centre of one of Britain's most high-value divorces, and is seeking a £200million settlement from her estranged husband, tycoon Scot Young.



Mr Young, a one-time 'fixer' to the super-rich, claims that the credit crunch destroyed his property empire and left him with debts of £27million. He has not paid Mrs Young any maintenance for almost a year, and their daughters' £9,000-a-term school fees have gone unpaid since April, the court heard.



Mrs Young claims he has also failed to pay almost £24,000 in rent on the home she shares with the girls, who are aged 17 and 15.

She insists he has hidden his fortune in offshore bank accounts and secret property deals to avoid a court order to hand over half his assets.

Mrs Young has called for her husband to be jailed if he cannot explain how he lost his fortune, and her lawyers have asked for him to hear 'the clang of the prison gate'.

But she has been unable to stop her landlords, Peter and Charlotte Bolland, from seeking her eviction.



Yesterday's hearing at the Central London County Court laid bare the extent of her riches-to-rags saga.

Scot Young with his new girlfriend fashion designer Noelle Reno

Her lawyer Claire van Overdijk told the court: 'In order to be able to survive and support her two daughters... she has sold all her jewellery now and has no assets worth selling to her name.'

Mrs van Overdijk said Mrs Young owed solicitors' fees of £120,000, and said her daughters' unpaid school fees now totalled £36,000.

She added: 'Mrs Young's funds are effectively zero. At this moment in time she has no funds to her name.'

But Mr Geiringer said Mrs Young's case was no worse than that of any other evictee who had come before the judge in these difficult economic times.

He told the court: 'On a cold-hearted, rational assessment of her own evidence, the defendant is failing to come to terms with a change in her personal circumstances.

'One can be sympathetic to that, and can accept that she is having a very hard time, but in my submission that does not reach the level of exceptional hardship.

'The circumstances the defendant finds herself in are not more difficult than the average person facing eviction.

'Everybody who is evicted from their residence has difficulties associated with that eviction.'

District Judge Michael Gilchrist gave Mrs Young a six-week stay of execution to find a new house, but awarded her landlords a possession order for November 25.

Eviction notice: The luxury Regent's Park townhouse in London where Mrs Young lives with her two daughters



She appeared close to tears as she left the court, and she later issued an emotional statement in which she said she was 'utterly distraught'.

It said: 'My husband, Scot Young, has totally abandoned his responsibilities to his young daughters, and his failure to provide a safe and secure home for them is causing exceptional emotional torment.

'He appears to have no concern for the welfare of his girls, let alone me.

'He and those who aid him should be ashamed. He is clearly trying to destroy me and break our resolve to fight for what is rightfully ours.

'Allowing his family to end up on the street is a despicable act and people will start to see what sort of a man he is.'

Mr Young has told friends that he will prove he has genuinely lost his fortune, and is now unable to pay his wife the £48,000-a-month maintenance she is seeking.

Family Court judge Mrs Justice Parker has warned Mr Young that he will face a six-month jail term if he cannot account for his losses at the next hearing, on November 13.