£4m of properties had been caught in legal limbo

Three homes owned by Sean Hughes have been given to a homeless charity after more than eight years in limbo.

The comedian left the properties in North London to Shelter in his DIY will – but ambiguities in the way her wrote it required the High Court  to intervene.

Now, a judge has ruled that the charity should receive the three houses in Crouch End, after his family also agreed that was what he wanted.

Hughes died in October 2017 at the age of 51, after suffering from cirrhosis of the liver. Having never married, he left his main £1.8million home and two others, worth £1.5 million and £650,000 respective, to Shelter. 

But while he was the owner of one home, the other two were in the name of a company of which he was the only shareholder, The Independent reports today. So it required a judge to decide whether that the shares in that  company – and therefore the properties – should go to Shelter.

Master Iain Pester, concluded that was the ‘correct construction of the will’ – after hearing that the executor of Hughes’ will and his family all agreed that Shelter should benefit. 

Hughes became the youngest winner of the prestigious Perrier Award  in 1990, at the age of 24. It led to his own sitcom, Sean’s Show, and subsequently the team captain’s role on Never Mind the Buzzcocks from 1996 to 2002.

He also played the lead in the film adaptation of Spike Milligan's comic novel, Puckoon, and wrote a number of novels.

• Click here to make Chortle a 'preferred source' on Google, which means results from this site will appear higher in your search results.

Published: 18 Mar 2026