Prison love letters: $2.6 million payout from her property tycoon ex

PHOTO: Nicola Oberman was awarded half the value of the property portfolio. Picture: Champion News

When her multi-millionaire ex tried to claim she had done nothing to help the business, this woman used old love letters to prove her case.

A woman has been awarded a $2.6 million payout from her property tycoon ex after using his prison love letters to her from 24 years ago to prove her case in court.

Nicola Oberman, 54, has two children with multi-millionaire mogul Shaun Collins, 53, but the pair never married.

The couple stayed together despite the estate agent being jailed for false accounting in 1997, when they had been together for a year.

In the letters, Mr Collins promised Ms Oberman she would be his equal in his property empire that he planned on building when he was released.

He went on to create a multimillion-pound portfolio of more than 40 Kent and London properties over their years together

But after the pair split in 2015, Mr Collins denied she was a joint partner and insisted that he did “virtually everything” in the business, while his ex had been a “stay-at-home mother” who “did not like working”.

But last week a judge at London’s High Court ruled that Mr Collins must pay his Ms Oberman £1.4 million ($A2.6 million) to buy her out of the joint business through which most of their portfolio was held.

The court heard the couple had only been together a year when Mr Collins, then working as an estate agent, received the six-month jail sentence. Picture: Champion News