PROPERTY INVESTOR'S BROTHER ORDERED TO PAY £490,000 AFTER LOSING...

Amir Moaven has been ordered to pay £490,000 in legal costs following his defeat in a High Court battle over his brother's estate. The dispute centred on whether four valuable London properties formed part of Abbas Moaven's £5 million fortune. Deputy Master Timothy Bowles ruled that legal documents signed by Abbas weeks before his death in 2012, which declared the properties were not entirely his, constituted a "sham" designed to deprive his widow of her inheritance. Gabriela Teixeira, Abbas's widow, successfully argued that the properties should be included in the estate she and their two adult children were entitled to inherit.

Abbas Moaven, a property investor and restaurateur, died aged 45, leaving behind a widow and two children. The documents Amir and Abbas had signed claimed their mother and brother held shares in the four properties, substantially reducing the estate's value and potentially leaving it worthless after debts. Gabriela Teixeira, a yoga teacher and birth doula, launched the court case alongside her children, Elis and Aryan, to recover what they believed was rightfully theirs. The judge also declared Abbas's accountant Behzad Faiz and conveyancing solicitor Marios Robert Pittalis jointly liable for £473,000 of the legal bill, having been found "complicit" in creating the fraudulent documents.

The ruling established that the story behind the property arrangements was a "fiction" concocted to circumvent inheritance law. Abbas and Amir had emigrated from Iran to the United Kingdom in 1982 and initially established a clothing shop in west London before moving into the mobile phone sector and later restaurants. The court's decision holds multiple parties financially accountable for the scheme that the judge found had been deliberately constructed.