An “extremely wealthy” viscount has lost a legal battle with his pop star sister with "a desperate need for money" over their ￡2 million inheritance.

       Thomas, Viscount Savernake, was accused of “ignoring his responsibilities” towards Lady Catherine Anna Brudenell-Bruce, also known as Bo Bruce, the singer and runner up on The Voice UK television show, in an “unfortunate case of sibling mistrust”.

       He had been acting as executor of the estate left to them by their mother, Lady Rosamund, the former Countess of Cardigan, who died in 2012 from cancer at the age of 63.

       The inheritance was made up largely of Leigh Hill House, a six-bedroom, ivy-clad family home that the countess received as part of her divorce from David Brudenell-Bruce, the Earl of Cardigan, in 2009.

       However, the High Court heard that despite nearly 10 years having elapsed since the mother’s death, the 40-year-old viscount had still not moved out of their Wiltshire home to sell his share of the inheritance.

       The court heard Ms Bruce, 37, was “desperate for money” and spent years trying to get him to sell up or buy her out of the house near Marlborough.

       Last week, she won a court order sacking him as the estate executor, paving the way for the house to be sold and the inheritance to be shared between them.

       The Savernake estate with a vast forest has been in the family ever since it was given to the Brudenell-Bruces by William the Conqueror.

       Deputy Master John Linwood, who presided over the London hearing, found the brother’s desire to keep home in the family meant he had “ignored his responsibilities” to his sister.

       Ms Bruce, who attended Marlborough College, was said to be in “parlous financial circumstances”, despite finishing runner up on The Voice UK in 2012 and releasing her Top 10 album, Before I Sleep, the following year.

       Steven Ball, Ms Bruce's barrister, said relations had been "fairly amicable" between the siblings immediately after the death of their mother, the cookery writer Rosamund Winkley.

       However, while Ms Bruce initially wanted the house to remain in the family she changed her mind in 2015.

       She eventually moved to Somerset, while her viscount brother continued living at the house paying her ￡20,000-a-year rent in lieu of ownership.

       He also advanced her loans - the exact amount was disputed - as well as paying ￡11,000 towards her wedding.

       In 2018, she wrote to her brother and his lawyers explaining she felt “locked into ownership” of a house she did not inhabit but was her “only financial security”.

       “If Tom doesn't buy out then it is only fair that it be sold,” she wrote.

       Mr Ball said the viscount later claimed a buyout could not happen until she had paid off her debts to him.

       Harry Martin, for the viscount, said Ms Bruce had accepted rent and loans from her brother, who had executed the will correctly with only the realisation of the house value remaining.

       Describing the dispute as “an unfortunate case of sibling distrust”, Deputy Master Linwood said he did not accept the administration of the estate would be carried out properly if the viscount remained executor.

       The judge insisted he found no “wrongdoing” on the brother’s part, but appointed an independent executor so the home, once valued up to ￡2.4 million, could be sold.

       During the two-day hearing, their father, the Earl of Cardigan, 69, and 31st Warden of Savernake Forest, sat at the back of the court.

       Although the earl, the son of the eighth Marquess of Ailesbury, is a distant descendant of Jane Seymour, the third wife of King Henry VIII, he knows better than most how pedigree is no defence from poverty.

       In 2013, the Old Etonian who spent a period in rehab in America, revealed he was claiming ￡71-a-week Jobseeker’s Allowance, working as a delivery driver and trying to obtain an HGV licence.

       His relationship with his daughter has been strained following a series of bitter disputes.