Wills & Trusts Law Reports | November 2016 #164Tegwyn and Mary Davies purchased a dairy farm known as Henllan in West Wales in 1972. It comprised a farmhouse, an attached cottage, outbuildings, and 182 acres of land. It was farmed with a nearby farm also owned by them known as Caeremlyn which they had purchased in 1961 (together ‘the farm’). The respondent, Eirian was one of their three daughters. By 1989, she was the only child left at the farm. She had a passionate interest in pedigree milking cows which was the main business of the farm, and it was by this stage clear that she was the only possible candidate to take it over. In th...
William Batstone examines the Court of Appeal decision in Davies v Davies [2016] ‘Detriment need not be quantifiable financial detriment, but it must be substantial and it must be weighed against any countervailing benefits.’ Tegwyn and Mary Davies have farmed in West Carmarthenshire since 1961 and they continue to do so now in their mid-seventies. …
Continue reading "Proprietary Estoppel: Considering detriment"
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Wills & Trusts Law Reports | September 2016 #162The appeal concerned a proprietary estoppel claim by the respondent, Eirian, with respect to her parents’ pedigree dairy farm.
Eirian’s claim was precipitated by the fact that her parents had sought to evict her from the farmhouse where she was living. Eirian had worked on Henllan during lengthy periods of her adult life. There were a number of arguments between Eirian and her parents which had, on occasion, led to Eirian temporarily leaving the farm. During one such period she worked as a technician for a company called Genus, which specialised in livestock reproduction services....
Matthew Howson examines the lessons from Winkler v Shamoon [2016] ‘The presence of an Israeli estate, Israeli personae and all the other claims in Israel meant that Israel was clearly the most natural and convenient forum for the claim.’ Sami Shamoon (Mr Shamoon) had a remarkable life. Born in the 1930s to an Iraqi Jewish …
Continue reading "Jurisdiction: Out of place"
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Wills & Trusts Law Reports | December 2015 #155This claim concerned a property. The freehold had belonged legally and beneficially to J who had run a business of a pub and restaurant from the property in partnership with her husband B. J died in 1997. On her death the property passed by her will to her executors and trustees, essentially for the benefit of B for his life and, subject to B’s interest, for J’s three children in equal shares (the will trust).
The claimants were the current trustees of the will trust and hence the legal owners of the freehold of the property. The first defendant was J’s son (one of the beneficiari...
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | November 2015 #154The appellant (Mr Herbert) owned the freehold of a house and a large garden. The respondents (Mr Doyle and Mr Talati) owned the freehold of an adjacent property comprising a dental surgery with nine parking spaces. They also leased part of the ground floor in the main house from Mr Herbert. They carried on a practice as dental practitioners from the freehold and leasehold premises and they and their clients used the parking spaces. Mr Herbert wished to develop the former walled garden of Mansfield House and to build mews houses, but to do so he needed Mr Doyle and Mr Talati to exchange s...
William Batstone examines Davies v Davies [2015], in which a farmer’s son secured the freehold of the farm that his father had encouraged him to make his life’s work by promises that it would eventually be his ‘If James had been made aware of his father’s wishes in 1999, when he was in his early …
Continue reading "Proprietary Estoppel: One day all this will be yours"
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Wills & Trusts Law Reports | September 2015 #152This was the hearing of an application for strike out of a Part 20 claim or alternatively summary judgment in favour of the defendants where the underlying proceedings related to two separate trusts: a settlement of land and other assets created on 18 February 1967 by Charles (the settlement) and a will dated 15 March 1998 of Charles’s son, John, who died on 20 December 2004 (the will fund).
The claimant in the underlying proceedings had sought declaratory relief regarding the construction of a March 2007 deed, alternatively rectification of it, whereby the trustees of the will fu...
Andrea Zavos and Will Twidale analyse a proprietary estoppel claim against trustees ‘Sir William Blackburne said that the question before him was whether it was sufficiently pleaded that Mr Jodrell was the agent at all of his co-trustees, in the sense that they authorised him to make the representations in question on their behalf.’ In …
Continue reading "Proprietary Estoppel: Words and deeds"
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Wills & Trusts Law Reports | March 2015 #147The claimant was Patricia Wright who made a claim against the estate of her mother Mary Waters. Mrs Waters died on 29 December 2010 leaving an estate worth £138,000.
Mrs Waters had two children – Patricia and David. Patricia (a widow) has one child Victoria and two grandchildren. Patricia suffers from numerous medical conditions and is wheelchair bound. Her outgoings exceed her income.
David married Susan and has four children.
Mrs Waters made a will in January 2009 leaving legacies of £5000 to each of David’s children, £7,000 between her sister-in-law and a niece an...
