A furniture designer is locked in a multi-million pound court fight with her tycoon ex and his former company for half of their £18million house which he reportedly promised her during a ‘lunch on a snowcapped mountain’ in the Alps.
Aged 20, Christina Haynes was less than half her 46-year-old multimillionaire boyfriend Mark Austin’s age when they met in 2000 and began a ‘blissfully happy’ relationship, during which they had two children.
She gave up her job and the couple set up home in a west London mansion now worth £18m, with Mr Austin sinking his wealth into offshore trusts which by 2018 were worth roughly £66m.
By 2017 the pair had split and, following Family Court proceedings, Mr Austin, now 70, agreed to pay her £2.75m to buy a new house for her and the kids.
However, the tycoon has failed to pay the money, leading Ms Haynes to take him to court as well as his former company, Hamersley Invest Anstalt, the company through which the trust has owned the house since 2006.
Ms Haynes last week claimed that she had been promised half of their former home when Mr Austin took her to a lunch with the manager of his wealth trusts in the Liechtenstein Alps in 2014.
Ms Haynes says her ex sat next door while, over a mountaintop lunch, the trust boss assured her that a private promise from Mr Austin that she would have half the value of the house would be honoured.
Now 44 and head of operations at furniture design company Hiroca, she is asking Judge Joanne Wicks KC to order that the house be sold so she can get her share of the proceeds, and for an outstanding £3m she is owed by her ex, including legal costs, to come out of his share.
Christina Haynes is locked in a multi-million pound court fight with her tycoon ex and his former company for half of their £18million house which he reportedly promised her
The furniture designer, now 44, is pictured outside London’s High Court
However, Hamersley Invest Anstalt says it no longer has any ties to Mr Austin after he was removed as a beneficiary.
The company is itself suing, trying to force Mrs Haynes out of the London property which she had formerly shared with her ex.
The High Court heard that Ms Haynes, a former travel editor at now defunct luxury lifestyle magazine Tramp, met her tycoon ex Mark George Austin in 2000 and fell head over heels in love.
In the witness box, she told Judge Wicks that the couple were initially ‘blissfully happy’ and that she was ‘highly dependent’ on him, having given up her job to raise their children.
Ms Haynes said that when the house was bought and put in the company’s name she was asked to sign an occupation agreement ‘for tax reasons,’ stating she was a ‘caretaker’ and could be asked to moved out with her family on 60 days’ notice.
Her barrister Cheryl Jones told the court that no legal advice was taken on the occupation agreement and it was not witnessed.
She says she gave her then boyfriend a £60,000 inheritance from her mother to invest and paid for some of the works to the house herself, as well as managing the household and the property after Mr Austin sold his image library company Digital Vision Ltd in 2006, putting the proceeds into trusts and moving to Switzerland to minimise the tax he would pay.
Ms Haynes told the court that in 2014 her ex took her to Liechtenstein to meet the manager of the trusts and that during that trip ‘assurances’ were made that, despite his wealth being squirrelled away, she would be looked after financially if they split up.
During the meeting, the then trust manager had ‘confirmed that the agreement between Mr Austin and Ms Haynes would be adhered to’ and ‘assured her that she and the children were protected, that there was security for them and they could trust him,’ the barrister added.
Ms Haynes has two separate claims – a claim for £3m against Mr Austin personally and one against the company for half of the house
The deal was sealed over ‘lunch on the snow-covered mountains,’ Ms Haynes told the judge, with the trust manager ‘reassuring me that despite not being married this was still security for us and I could trust him.’
‘I was assured that my home and my children were protected,’ she added.
The arrangement that Ms Haynes was equal beneficial owner of the house with Mr Austin was formalised in a formal letter to the trust manager penned by Mr Austin in 2016, she says.
The couple split in 2017 and in December the following year they agreed a consent order under which Mr Austin was to pay her £2.75m to buy a new house and agreed to her staying in the family home until the new property was purchased.
In October 2019, a Family Court judge attached a penal order to the consent order, as it had not been paid along with over £200,000 worth of legal costs.
In 2020, the manager of the controlling overseas trust behind Hamersley Invest Anstalt wrote to Ms Haynes giving her notice to leave, as the house was to be sold.
But Ms Haynes obtained an injunction preventing her eviction and in 2021 was also granted charging orders of around £3m against the value of the property in relation to the money she was owed by her ex.
The case reached court last week, with Judge Wicks asked to decide whether Ms Haynes should be thrown out or whether the £18m house should be sold so she can get her half share plus £3m from her ex’s portion.
Her barrister Ms Jones told the judge that, after they had begun their relationship, Ms Haynes had – on his urging – given up her job and devoted herself to Mr Austin and their family, such that she was ‘entirely dependant’ on him.
Giving evidence, Ms Haynes said: ‘I’ve been to court with regard to this matter over 18 times… These life events are scarred on my memory, which have affected my dreams and every waking moment.
The High Court (pictured) heard that Ms Haynes met her tycoon ex Mark George Austin in 2000 and fell head over heels in love
‘I used to receive a significant fund of around £400,000 a year from Mark to use at my discretion. Everything was from Mr Austin at the time. I was highly dependent on him.’
But despite that dependency and his agreement to pay her £2.75m, he had ‘failed to honour it or pay the costs orders made against him,’ her barrister added.
‘He remains in contempt of the penal Family Court orders that he should pay the agreed housing fund,’ she added.
She said that Ms Haynes has two separate claims – a claim for £3m against Mr Austin personally and one against the company for half of the house.
Turning to the claim against the company, she said: ‘Hamersley Invest Anstalt is not entitled to possession, as she occupies the property with Mr Austin’s permission, pending a housing fund which has not yet been provided.
‘The company and Mr Austin are estopped from withdrawing consent given in those terms to the court.’
She also insisted that the ‘caretaker’ occupation agreement, even if valid, had been ‘superseded’ by the Alpine promises in 2014.
Based on the promise of half the house, Ms Haynes had formed a ‘detrimental reliance,’ she added.
‘Mrs Haynes was reassured at a high and elaborate level that her future was secured,’ she said.
‘She relied on that and, as a result, has lost ten years of opportunity to establish her own, properly secure future.
‘She has looked after the children alone and with little assistance from Mr Austin. Her conduct following the agreement was manifestly to her detriment.
‘That reliance means that repudiation of the promise is unconscionable and in itself causes harm.
Ms Haynes claimed that she had been promised half of their former home when Mr Austin took her to a lunch with the manager of his wealth trusts in the Liechtenstein Alps, pictured
‘She is entitled to and should receive 50% of the proceeds of sale.’
However, the company’s lawyers are arguing not only that Ms Haynes has no interest in the house, but also that Mr Austin has no right to any part of it either.
Its barrister, Ian Clarke KC, asked the judge to throw out the designer’s claim to the house because it is not bound by the promises she says were made.
He argued that, even if promises were made, the structure of control of the trusts has changed such that they are no longer binding and that Mr Austin now has no personal connection to the wealth in the fund.
Cross-examining Ms Haynes, he said she had stated in the Family Court proceedings that she had no beneficial interest in the house.
‘That contradicted what you say in these proceedings,’ he put to her in the witness box.
‘I accept that,’ she said, but added, ‘that was the case at the time because I first needed an order for sale’.
But the barrister put to her: ‘An application (before the Family Court) that neglects to mention a 50% interest in an £18m house would be materially misleading.’
However she replied: ‘I didn’t believe I was entitled to it at the time. I believed I would be entitled to it in the future.’
Although Mr Austin is the defendant in relation to the claim for the outstanding £3m, Ms Jones said he had ‘failed to file a defence.’
The judge has now reserved her decision in the case to be given at a later date.
