London doula Gabriela Teixeira wins £5m will fight after court exposes late husband Abbas Moaven’s property ‘sham’

A widow has defeated her brother-in-law in a High Court case over her late husband’s £5million fortune.

Gabriela Teixeira, a birth doula and yoga teacher, married wealthy London property investor and restaurateur Abbas Moaven in 2002, having met him at one of his facilities in Notting Hill two years earlier.

The couple had two children and enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle in favored areas such as Holland Park and Kensington.

But after Mr. Moaven’s death in 2012 at the age of 45, Ms. Teixeira discovered that the inheritance she and her now-adult children would inherit was potentially worthless.

Weeks before his death, he had signed legal documents declaring that the four properties, valued at over £3 million, were not wholly his own but were shared with his mother and brother Amir.

The move “significantly reduced” the inheritance and threatened to render it worthless due to debts.

Ms. Teixeira filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court against her children, Elis and Aryan, as well as Amir Moaven. Their aim was to restore the properties, which lawyers estimated could be worth up to £5 million, so that she and her children could inherit their full value.

The 51-year-old man claimed that the documents signed by her husband, which declared that the properties did not belong entirely to him, were “fake”, pointing to notes his lawyers took after the meeting with Amir, stating that Abbas expressed concerns that he could “disappear to Brazil” with the children after his death, and Amir questioned how this could have been prevented.

Deputy High Court judge Master Timothy Bowles delivered his verdict, ruling that the story behind the documents was a “fiction” and that the properties fell to the Abbas estate to be inherited by Gabriela and her children.

The judge said documents signed by Abbas declaring that they were not entirely his were a “sham” designed to prevent his widow from accessing most of his wealth after his death.

Gabriela Teixeira is a birth doula, a non-clinical professional who provides physical and emotional support to families before, during and after birth, and often attends actual births.

The mother, who is also a yoga teacher, describes in her online profile that she received a “call to service” when she was gifted a doula after the birth of her first child.

She says each birth and family is “unique” and that she “supports the family’s needs and wishes, while also helping the mother feel confident and confident in her instinctive ability to give birth.”

Her husband Abbas and his brother Amir moved from Iran to England in 1982 to live with their father and later opened a clothing store called Homeboy in West London.

They then branched out into the then-burgeoning mobile phone market and later restaurants in the mid-1990s, while also acquiring a number of properties around the capital.

Gabriela and Abbas met at his then restaurant, The Gate, near Notting Hill Gate Station and began dating in 2001, when Gabriela moved into the flat she shared with Amir in Queen’s Gate, Kensington.

While testifying, she told the judge that Abbas had given no indication that the apartment was not entirely his.

Abbas was diagnosed with cancer in 2009 and died in May 2012; His last will left his assets in third shares to his widow and two children, Elis Teixeira Moaven (22) and Aryan Moaven (19).

But the court heard the property had “dwindled significantly” because Abbas, just weeks before he died and while in hospital in April 2012, had signed trust documents declaring that he, his brother Amir and their mother Nazemi Tehran, who has since died, owned a one-third share of four properties in his name.

In court, Gabriela’s lawyer, Alexander Learmonth KC, said that if the trust declaration was valid, the estate would potentially become “exhausted” by other debts.

But he argued that the documents were “clearly fake” and designed to prevent his wife or creditors from laying claim to most of his assets after Abbas’ death.

He pointed to an attendance note of a meeting between Abbas’s lawyer and Amir in which Abbas was “seriously unwell” at home and his brother was trying to “put his affairs in order.”

The lawyers’ note stated: “What would happen if Abbas passed away and his wife left for Brazil with their two children? How could they have prevented this and denied her access to funds from property assets?”

A memo following another meeting added: “Amir confirmed that his main goal was to ensure the welfare of Abbas’s children because he was confident that all assets transferred to Abbas’s wife would be distributed.”

Mr Learmonth told the judge that the notes “make it clear that if the declarations of trust were indeed intended to have any legal effect, then they were made for the express purpose of disproving Gabriela and/or her children’s claim against the estate”.

He continued: “Abbas never intended his various declarations of trust to create any real change in legal relations or to deprive himself of his own interests.

“He only intended for them to be used to the extent necessary to fend off claims by Gabriela or potential creditors. It is clear that they are fake.”

He told the judge that Gabriela was anxious to return the property to the estate and receive her inheritance, adding: “She is unable to maintain the lifestyle she had when Abbas was alive, working as a doula to earn his income.

“It is deeply unsatisfactory that 14 years later, Gabriela and her two children, now grown from infancy to adulthood, have not received a proper accounting of Abbas’s inheritance, let alone their inheritance.”

But Amir, now 56, claimed that four properties, including Gabriela’s former homes at Queen’s Gate, Holland Park and Brasenose House in Kensington, as well as a rental property in Maida Hill, were placed in Abbas’ name only for “cultural reasons” because he was Abbas’ older brother.

Lawyer Lydia Pemberton described the dispute as a “very bitter family dispute” but insisted the statements were “the written manifestation of the long-standing agreement” that Abbas, Amir and their mother owned equal shares of the properties.

“There is no doubt that the plaintiffs were deeply disappointed that Abbas’ wealth and property were not what they expected, but disappointment does not constitute a valid claim,” he told the judge.

He continued: “In short, Amir’s situation is a pooling of resources between himself, Abbas, and their mother, as evidenced by years of joint business ventures.”

Acting Master Bowles, who ruled on the dispute, dismissed the Chief’s statements about the credentials as a “fiction” designed to cover up the truth.

“They were quite simply a means to an end, which was to make Abbas’s estate look much smaller than it actually was, and to do so with the alleged endorsement of informal trust arrangements that had no basis in reality,” he said.

“Contrary to the false narrative set forth in the declarations of trust, the properties are not and have never been held in the informal trusts alleged in the declarations and declarations of trust.

“External evidence fully supports Abbas’ view that he was the legal and beneficial owner of the properties at all times.

“These were documents without any legal or equitable content, designed solely to give Gabriela and the world a false impression of Abbas’ assets and property.

“In this regard, given my findings regarding the declarations of trust and the evidence supporting those findings, I have no doubt that the burden of providing convincing evidence that Gabriela and her children were ‘fakes’ of a high standard has been well and truly met.

“Declarations of trust are ‘spurious’ because their purpose was not to establish or confirm the rights purportedly declared, but rather to convey to those to whom the declarations of trust were made that the ownership of the properties was different from what it actually was and, accordingly, following Abbas’s death, his assets were different and much smaller than they actually were.

“These were simply deceptive promises that did not affect or limit the legal and actual ownership of the properties at the time of Abbas’s death and therefore did not preclude the full value of the properties falling into his estate.”

The court heard that Abbas would leave a third of the inheritance to his widow and two children, but that the children would only inherit when they reached a “specified age”, that is, until they were 35.

Gabriela’s request to increase the amount she receives under the will is scheduled to take place at a later date and is supported by her two children.

Partly due to complex tax and debt issues, the exact size of Abbas’s assets has not yet been calculated; Lawyers estimate the figure could be as much as £5 million if four properties are included.