In 2000, current matriarch Elizabeth Fortescue and her late husband Anthony embarked on an ambitious 12-year, multimillion-pound project to restore the main manor house. Their aim was to preserve the estate for future generations, transforming it into a luxury wedding venue.<\/p>\n
However, these plans faced a \u201cterrible blow\u201d after Anthony\u2019s death in 2015. In an attempt to minimise inheritance tax, Elizabeth made a \u201cmistake\u201d by transferring a life interest in estate properties, valued at approximately \u00a34.4m and held in family trusts, to her daughter Claire.<\/p>\n
![\"Elizabeth](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ElizabethFortescue1.jpeg\")
Elizabeth Fortescue has won a court fight to save her family\u2019s Bocconoc Estate (Supplied by Champion News)<\/p>\n
This error left the family, described as \u201cproperty rich but cash poor\u201d, facing the prospect of breaking up the centuries-old estate by selling properties to meet a \u00a31.2m tax demand. <\/p>\n
A High Court judge has now granted permission to reverse the process, allowing the aristocratic family to avoid the \u201cgrave and unintended tax consequences\u201d of the blunder.<\/p>\n
Grade-II listed Boconnoc House was built in the 18th century, beginning in 1721 by Thomas \u201cDiamond\u201d Pitt, ex-Governor of Madras, using the proceeds of sale of a giant Indian diamond, which was originally stolen from a murdered slave before being bought by Pitt.<\/p>\n
The diamond, which became known as the \u201cPitt Diamond\u201d or \u201cRegent Diamond\u201d, is a 140 carat-plus stone which ended up mounted in the crossguard of Napoleon\u2019s sword and is now on display in the Louvre, valued at \u00a360m.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/RegentDiamond.jpeg\")
The Regent Diamond, formerly owned by the Pitt family and sold by Thomas Pitt, who used the proceeds to build his family\u2019s Boconnoc House estate (Supplied by Champion News)<\/p>\n
Thomas Pitt\u2019s great great granddaughter and heir Anne Pitt \u2013 a cousin of William Pitt the Younger \u2013 later married William Wyndham, Lord Grenville, who, as prime minister, was famous for abolishing the slave trade.<\/p>\n
On her death in 1864, the estate was bequeathed to George Matthew Fortescue, the son of Lord Grenville\u2019s sister, Hester, and it has remained in the Fortescue family ever since.<\/p>\n
The estate, surrounding the River Lerryn, includes the largest landscaped deer park in Cornwall and is the home of the Boconnoc Cricket Club.<\/p>\n
Family matriarch of the current generation Elizabeth Fortescue inherited a life interest in the trusts in which the family estate is held after the death of her husband Anthony. After taking advice in 2017, she attempted to release her interest in \u00a34.4m worth of estate properties to one of her daughters, Claire, in a way that would avoid any inheritance tax so long as Elizabeth survived for seven more years.<\/p>\n
But despite having been given correct tax planning advice initially, there were blunders in the process she actually followed, the court heard.<\/p>\n
![\"Boconnoc](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/BoconnocHouse2.jpeg\")
Boconnoc House has undergone significant renovations over the years (Supplied by Champion News)<\/p>\n
Mrs Fortescue\u2019s barrister Oliver Conolly told Deputy Master Joanna Lampert: \u201cIt\u2019s crystal clear this was a clear mistake. This was [a] conscious thought process that this was an exempt transfer and that was clearly mistaken.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no way in which this can be seen as artificial tax avoidance. This is plain vanilla tax mitigation gone wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an estate which has been in the family for a long time. A huge amount of time and effort has been spent by Elizabeth and her late husband restoring the historic building and putting it on a stable footing. The restoration of the main manor house took 12 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is Elizabeth who made the mistake. If she had known the effect, she would never have done it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saying the \u00a31.2m bill threatened the future of the estate, the barrister told the judge that \u201cto pay \u00a31.2m in tax, the trusts would have to sell properties\u201d.<\/p>\n
The judge, allowing Elizabeth\u2019s claim, said the mistake had created \u201can unintended tax consequence\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cElizabeth was advised that if she released her interest in [the trusts] it would be potentially exempt [from IHT] after seven years,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt appears that the advice was right, but that the process used to give effect to it was both wrong and unnecessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe believed that no IHT would be payable on the released properties provided she survived seven years. That belief proved to be mistaken. Instead, they gave rise to a 20 per cent tax charge.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI shall make an order that the deeds of release be set aside and that the deeds of advancement are invalid,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Claire Fortescue, who, along with the trustees of the family trusts, were the defendants in the action, did not oppose the making of the orders sought by Elizabeth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,63,99,186,184,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-624223","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-finance","12":"tag-personal-finance","13":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}