A court of appeal has put a longstanding dispute about Mabel Strickland's Lija property to bed, declaring that Villa Parisio and its adjoining lands belong to the Strickland Foundation. 

The court also ruled that Strickland's heir, Robert Hornyold Strickland, should have limited right to use specific rooms on the property. 

The matter had been a bone of contention between Hornyold Strickland, as sole universal heir, and the foundation set up in Strickland’s name, which holds the majority shareholding in Allied Newspapers Ltd, publishers of Times of Malta. Mabel Strickland was a former politician and one of the founders of Times of Malta.

The crux of the issue centred around the one-storey 17th-century villa, which was bequeathed to the foundation by Strickland through a secret will dated August 11, 1979.

That same will also nominated her great-nephew, Hornyold Strickland, as her sole universal heir, granting him the right of use and habitation of “the guest rooms with bathroom and study at Villa Parisio provided that the enjoyment of such right shall in no way interfere with the work of the foundation.” 

However, the heir insisted that the right of use and habitation extended to the rest of the property and its adjoining lands. Those lands, he said, were acquired by his great aunt at a later date and did not fall within the foundation’s legacy. 

Those lands, known as Kerry Dairy, measuring four tumuli and two tumuli respectively, were acquired in July 1947 under perpetual ground rent.

A garden on Main Street was acquired by the testator under an 80-year temporary ground rent in 1954 and was described in her property ledger as “adjoining Villa Parisio.”

That issue lay at the heart of the lawsuit filed by Hornyold Strickland against the foundation where the heir insisted that although those lands were accessible through the villa, his aunt never meant them to form part of that property.

Had she intended that, she would have ordered the high boundary walls separating one area from the other, to be pulled down so that those lands would form an integral part of the Villa.

Both Kerry Dairy and 83, Main Street had a separate entrance, argued the heir, adding that his predecessor intended to use those lands to grow vegetables to supply the Xara Palace Hotel, which was also her property at the time. 

Those arguments had been turned down by the First Hall, Civil Court in 2018 in a judgment which declared that the interconnected lands formed part of the villa and that Hornyold Strickland only had a right of use and habitation over the rooms indicated by the executors of his great aunt’s will. 

However, that court had upheld two of the heir’s requests ordering the removal of security cameras inside the villa, which he claimed invaded his privacy, and also ordered that a room formerly used as a kitchen, was to be returned to its original state. 

Both parties appealed that judgment and this week the court of appeal, presided over by Chief Justice Mark Chetcuti and Justices Joseph R Micallef and Tonio Mallia, handed down final judgment, thus bringing the curtain down on the longstanding dispute. 

The three judges observed that the court could not ignore what the deceased had written in her property ledger indicating that she clearly considered those lands as forming part of her villa. 

That was also confirmed by Strickland’s niece, the late Viscountess Lady Marianna who had recalled in her affidavit her time living at the villa, saying that “the grounds surrounding the villa were always considered as one property with the villa.”

The court also observed that both testamentary executors, namely Professor Joseph Max Ganado and the late President Emeritus Guido de Marco, also gave various accounts showing that “the whole area of Villa Parisio formed part of Mabel’s residence as one property…”

De Marco had stated in his affidavit that the testator had “specified that Villa Parisio be part of this legacy in favour of The Strickland Foundation…. [and] she was explicit in including in such property the garden, the tennis court and grounds attached to such villa as she considered them to be one whole with the building where the villa is located.” 

In light of the evidence put forward the court confirmed that the property bequeathed to the foundation included the lands at issue. 

Heir’s right of use and habitation

Hornyold Strickland also argued that his aunt never meant to limit his right of use and habitation to a few rooms. 

She would never have done that to “those she loved”, to her “heirs”, those who had lived with her and showed her “respect and love,” argued the appellant, saying that such a limited interpretation would cause him and his family to suffer. 

But the court observed that that “was absolutely not the case.”

Hornyold Strickland had inherited a number of other properties and saying that his aunt meant him to use the villa whilst intending the foundation to use it for address purposes “was a rather absurd assertion”.

As for the security cameras issue, the court observed that since the previous judgment, those devices had been removed following lengthy discussions and replaced with others that monitored the area managed by the foundation. 

As for the kitchen, the right of use did not include such and therefore the foundation had every right to carry out works in that room. 

'Precious articles' and bound books'

Movables not included in the legacy had long been handed over to the heir.

Others, not disputed, were in safe custody by the foundation to be handed over to Hornyold Strickland, the court was told. 

However, the interpretation of what constituted “precious articles” and “bound books” was also contested.

The court concluded that “precious articles” referred to items in the same category as “gold and silver,” while “bound books” was no misnomer for “bond books” but a reference to ledgers kept by Strickland, such as her property portfolio.

Those items were to be handed to her heir, said the judges, rejecting his claims over the lands adjoining the villa and any extended right of use and habitation beyond those rooms specified by his aunt in her will. 

The court also rejected his request for the foundation to demolish any structures it had built on the disputed lands.