A Ukrainian waitress who was left a £650,000 home by an 82-year-old ‘recluse’ she befriended at her café today vowed to stay at the property after his family won a bitter inheritance battle to get it back.
Mariia Romanyshyn, 38, has broken her silence to defend herself after the family of lifelong bachelor Richard Joy took her to court to regain control of his semi-detached property Harrow, north-west London.
Mr Joy, an eccentric military memorabilia collector, died in May 2018 after spending his entire life in the family home, which sits on the end of a quiet cul-de-sac.
The pensioner, described by those who knew him as a ‘bachelor’ and a ‘recluse’, never married or had children and spent most of his time at the local library or adding to his collection of rare coins and military medals.
The Central London County Court heard that less than two years before he died, he gifted his home to Ms Romanyshyn, a Ukrainian waitress he met while she was working in his local café in 2011.
Mrs Romanyshyn claimed that she formed a close bond with Mr Joy, who visited the ‘The Upper Crust’ café in Harrow three times a week, and that he eventually invited her and her family to live with him as an ‘adopted family’.
The waitress says he ultimately decided to gift her the house in 2016, having ‘thrust’ the deeds of the property into her hands and said: ‘The house is yours. I want you to keep the house.’
However, Martin Larney, Mr Joy’s cousin and the executor of a will, sued Ms Romanyshyn over the house ‘gift’ and the two parties have now settled in court, with the waitress dropping her claim to ownership.
Speaking to MailOnline about whether she would need to vacate the property, Ms Romanyshyn insisted: ‘No, this was his will, why do I need to move out? This is Mr Joy’s wish. That was his wish.
Mariia Romanyshyn (pictured), 38, a Ukrainian part-time waitress, was gifted Richard Joy’s £650,000 house in his will – before being sued by Mr Joy’s cousin Martin Larney
Pictured is the £650,000 Harrow property at the centre of the bitter will battle between Mr Joy’s family and Mrs Romanyshyn
Mrs Romanyshyn was successfully sued by Mr Joy’s cousin and executor of his estate, Martin Larney (pictured with his mother Doreen)
‘All the witnesses can confirm everything was done how it is.’
When asked if Mr Joy wanted her to have the house, she reiterated: ‘Yes, that was his wish.’
Ms Romanyshyn added: ‘In all the time I knew Mr Joy he did not have any family come and visit him.’
She claimed Mr Joy would be ‘shocked’ if he found out his family had come for the house and said they only showed an interest after his death when there was money involved.
Ms Romanyshyn did not want to discuss the case any further.
The family had claimed Mr Joy was too mentally frail to understand what he was doing but Mrs Romanyshyn fought back.
However, Ms Romanyshyn insisted he was sharp enough to follow the complex storylines of actor Benedict Cumberbatch in TV series Sherlock and to play chess with her daughter, to whom he was a ‘grandfather figure’.
After a week in court, the case came to an end when the parties agreed to settle their row, with Ms Romanyshyn dropping her claim to ownership of the house.
In his order, Judge Simon Monty said the parties had agreed her claim to the house would be ‘dismissed’ and Mr Joy’s estate divided up under the terms of a 2011 will.
That leaves the bulk of his estate to Mr Larney, his 87-year-old mother Doreen and also a former friend.
The case has divided those who knew Mr Joy, with some claiming he was very frail in his final days and others suggesting Ms Romanyshyn deserved the house because she looked after him.
Mr Joy met Mariia Romanyshyn when she worked at this café in Harrow, north-west London
Tracey King, the churchwarden of the nearby Church of the Ascension, said Ms Romanyshyn attends services with her husband and children.
Ms King told MailOnline: ‘She was very upset last week because of all the goings-on. There are a lot of elderly people out there that don’t have a family and if you are a Christian and want to be helpful and kind and you get to know them
‘I think from Mariia’s point of view, she’s obviously befriended him over a number of years, I think since 2011 from him coming into the cafe.
‘She’s got to know him more and more. He was elderly, she said her husband used to shave him and look after him.
‘They got more and more friendly and I think over a period of time, they moved in and she said they had a room and he used to keep his things and they looked after him.’
Ms King, who said Mr Joy also used to come to the church before his death, added: ‘I think he felt they had done more for him than anybody so he left her the house.
‘She just helped him out the goodness of the heart.
‘I feel sorry for Mariia, she’s got a very good heart and helps people all the time. I don’t think she befriended him just to get anything.’
‘He obviously valued and appreciated what Mariia and the family did for her and wanted to leave her something to say thank you and she became family.’
However, neighbours on the street backed the family in their bid to get the house back.
The family had claimed Mr Joy was too mentally frail to understand what he was doing but Mrs Romanyshyn (pictured) fought back
One neighbour, who did not want to be named, told MailOnline it was ‘good’ that the family had reclaimed the property back.
‘That’s how it should be, its heritage,’ he said. ‘It is family heritage, it should go to the family. He was old, I don’t think he was 100 per cent in his last stages.’
He added: ‘I never saw his family coming round but it’s his blood.
‘He was an old man.
‘I’ve been here 10 years and never saw any family visit him.’
Speaking about Mr Joy, he said: ‘He was very quiet, he used to keep everything to himself. I think in the last stages, he wasn’t well. He must have had some heart problem because he used to sit on the wall… he would lose his breath… I used to feel sorry for him.’
He said Mr Joy never spoke about Ms Romanyshyn, adding: ‘These people just came all of a sudden one day. They just turned up one day.’
A local shopkeeper, who served Mr Joy for more than 20 years, told MailOnline: ‘Richard used to come in with his raincoat and hat and red face.
‘He was a special needs boy all his life but of that generation when they just looked after him at home.
‘He used to come in three, four, five times a week, a very quiet kept himself to himself.
‘I suppose he would pop in for meals [with Mariia] and they did have a relationship in the sense that she would do his shopping I think.
Tracey King, the churchwarden of the nearby Church of the Ascension (pictured), said Ms Romanyshyn attends services with her husband and children and was very ‘upset’ while the case was going on
The store owner described Mr Joy as ‘softly spoken and just a typical old bachelor’.
During the case, Bhagavan Boyinapalli, a neighbour who has lived on the street nearly 20 years, told MailOnline: ‘It’s a very quiet neighbourhood, but those people [Ms Romanyshyn and her family] are very rude.
‘He [Richard] was very old. I didn’t know he passed away until I heard the sudden news. When I saw these people I thought who are they?
Mr Boyinapalli questioned why Mr Joy ‘would have given his house away to a waitress’, adding: ‘It has to go to a family, not to a waitress, when he’s that old having a friendship and giving her the property, it’s not fair.
‘I 100 per cent support the family.’
A neighbour, who has lived on the road for more than 20 years, said: ‘Richard was a private man, he was quite nice, he was on the road for a while.
‘He seemed perfectly fine to me whenever I saw him, never changed in all the time we had been there.
‘I’ve never seen anyone come visit him ever, that’s not to say somebody didn’t come and I didn’t see, but I’m not aware of him having visitors.
She also never saw Mr Joy with Ms Romanyshyn – something echoed by several neighbours and local businesses.
‘I’m only going to look from it from one perspective, since they weren’t around as far as I know when he was alive, why would it matter to them who he left his property to?
‘The only reason I would concern myself as a relative would be if I felt something untoward had happened. If I didn’t think anything untoward had happened, it’s not my property and I think it’s right for him to leave it to whoever he wants to.’
Another neighbour, who did not want to be named, told MailOnline: ‘In my opinion, it’s wrong. Mariia looked after that gentleman properly, she does deserve it.’
During the trial at Central London County Court, Judge Monty heard that Mr Joy had never had a family of his own and lived his entire life in his parents’ home.
Under a will made in 2011, most of his fortune including the house was to be split between Mr Larney, his mother Doreen and a friend not involved in the case.
But after Mr Joy’s death, it emerged that in 2016 he had signed a document gifting the property to Mrs Romanyshyn.
Challenging the gift in court, Mr Larney’s barrister Andrew Nicklin claimed that Mr Joy did not have capacity to make such a big decision at that stage of life.
He was ‘vulnerable with apparent cognitive impairment’ and ‘dependent’ on Mrs Romanyshyn, who had moved into his home with her family at some point after they became friends at the café, the lawyer said.
Giving evidence, Mrs Romanyshyn explained how she got to know Mr Joy in 2011 while serving him in the café, where she knew him as a ‘respectable and reputable customer’.
Mr Larney (pictured) told the High Court the gift of the property in 2016 was invalid because Mr Joy was too mentally frail to fully understand what he was doing at the time
After Mr Joy spent a spell in hospital, she had offered to help him with shopping or casual chores and assisted him on a more regular basis as the years went by.
Mr Joy had ‘repeatedly encouraged’ her and her family to set up house with him, she said, telling her: ‘My wish is for this to be your family home.’
She told the court she ended up moving in, along with her family, despite her misgivings about such a big step which forced her to abandon previous plans to move out of London and buy a home.
Her barrister Lynne Counsell said: ‘They and their children became the adopted family of the deceased and they also assisted him and cared for him, but neither of them were ever paid carers and at no time demanded or received any money for their care and assistance.’
Mrs Romanyshyn treated the pensioner ‘as her uncle’, while her daughter viewed him ‘as a grandfather figure’ – and he was still mentally sharp enough to make major decisions, Ms Counsell continued.
The barrister added: ‘The deceased played chess with Mrs Romanyshyn’s oldest daughter before and after the deed of gift and he also watched and was able to follow episodes of Sherlock on television.’
Mrs Romanyshyn told the judge Mr Joy simply told her, ‘I have a present for you’, before offering her the house deeds, to which she had replied: ‘Don’t worry, I will look after it very well for you.’
She added: ‘He received and felt the care, love and affection from me and my family. An extremely high degree of trust was there between us.’
But Mr Larney’s barrister Mr Nicklin suggested that in 2016 Mr Joy was in no position to sign off complex legal documents.
He told the court: ‘The deceased was vulnerable with apparent cognitive impairment and, on the face of the medical evidence produced, lacking capacity.’
Although accepting that the relationship between Mr Joy and Mrs Romanyshyn’s family may have involved ‘care and affection’, he said she held ‘a position of ascendancy’ which demanded the utmost care be taken to ensure he knew what he was doing when deciding legal issues.
Giving evidence, Mr Joy’s 87-year-old cousin Doreen Larney – who now stands to inherit a share of the house under the 2011 will – described her first cousin as a ‘a bit of a recluse’ who had a tendency to burn through his money.
She said his bank manager father had tried to leave him money in trust because he ‘got through it so fast’.
‘He just wasn’t good with money, it had no value for him,’ she told the judge, adding: ‘He would spend £6,000 on a gold coin and then he wouldn’t have any money left.’
Mr Larney went to court to overturn the 2016 gift of the house, so that it could be included in his estate and divided up under the terms of his 2011 will.
The court heard that under the will Mr Joy’s collection of millitaria was donated to the Imperial War Museum in south London, while part of his coin collection was sold to pay for his funeral expenses.
The case was heard in a week-long trial last month, but the warring parties agreed to settle their dispute out of court after negotiations behind the scenes.
The settlement is partially confidential, but Judge Monty in his order stated he was ‘satisfied on the evidence heard at trial that the last true will of Richard Anthony Joy was the will dated 26 November 2011’.
He said Mrs Romanyshyn’s counterclaim against Mr Larney, in which she sought a ruling that she owns Mr Joy’s old home due to a 2016 deed of gift, would be ‘dismissed’.
