Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Spring 2024 #194James Morris (the settlor), a Labour Party councillor and businessman, settled two trusts (the trusts). This claim concerned the validity of the trusts, their rectification, a proprietary estoppel claim by a beneficiary, and the consequences of the trusts’ invalidity.
The first trust concerned Morris Hall, Bellstone Court, Bellstone, Shrewsbury (the hall), which Mr Morris transferred to himself and three others to hold pursuant to a declaration of trust dated 5 April 1934 (the hall trust).
Clause 1(g) of the hall trust provided:
‘After making provision fo...
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Summer 2022 #187W was the founder of WBL, an internationally renowned publisher of children’s books. In 1989 W instructed solicitors to create an employee trust (WBET) for WBL and transferred 51% of the WBL shares into WBET. The remainder of the shares were divided amongst family trusts established by W.
W died in 1991 and the shares in WBL held by the family trusts were distributed to employees and officers of WBL through a qualifying employee share ownership trust and a share incentive plan. Some of those shares were acquired from employees by the WBL Employee Share Ownership Plan (ESOP).
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Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Summer 2022 #187By a trust instrument dated 29 April 1986 (the 1986 deed), Stephenson Clarke Shipping Ltd, a subsidiary of Powell Duffryn plc and member of the Powell Duffryn group of companies (the PD Group), as the named settlor, settled cash and securities on a discretionary trust for the benefit of employees and former employees of the PD Group (the trust). The trust defined the beneficiaries as ‘the employees and their spouses and dependants and the former employees and their spouses from time to time during the trust period [being the period expiring eighty years from the date of the trust] of the...
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Spring 2022 #186On 23 October 2020 the Bermuda Supreme Court granted a Public Trustee v Cooper Category 2 application for a ‘blessing’ of the applicant trustees’ decision to develop preliminary proposals for the future administration of an apparently very valuable group of private trusts, referred to as ‘the X Trusts’. The preliminary proposals contemplated restructuring the X Trusts by way of an unequal division of the trust assets between two branches of the beneficiary family. One branch of the family supported these proposals, the other did not.
Implementation of the trustees’ propos...
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Winter 2021 #185In 1994, by a series of trust deeds, Mrs Pesenti established four settlements in the Isle of Man known as the RR1, RR2, RR3 and RR4 Trusts, each of which was for the benefit of one of her children and his/her heirs. The RR2 Trust (the trust), which alone formed the subject of this case, took as its beneficiaries the appellant and her issue born before the perpetuity date, together with two named charities. The dispositive provisions of the trust required the trustees to hold the trust fund and its income on discretionary trusts for all or such one or more exclusively of the others or oth...
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Winter 2021 #185Between 2011 and 2013, the claimant obtained multiple charging orders in respect of five properties registered in the joint names of Mr and Mrs Dua. The Duas occupied four of the properties as a single residence, known together as ‘Fulmer House’. The other was a separate property known as 49 Sudbury Avenue.
The Duas had purchased 49 Sudbury Avenue in 1987 and occupied it as their family home until 2004. The purchase had been funded by a mortgage and the Duas’ evidence was that Mr Dua alone had made the mortgage payments. In 1992/93 and 1995, there were two major extensions to 49 S...
Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Winter 2020 #181In 1927 a partner (GF) in Barings Brothers & Co (Barings) transferred cash and securities of almost £500,000 (the National Fund) to Barings in anticipation of the execution of a deed of trust by Barings, which was executed on 9 January 1928 (the deed). Other donors, including Lord Dalziel, subsequently made further contributions to the National Fund. By clause 2 of the deed Barings held the National Fund as trustees upon trust to accumulate income and profits until the date fixed by the trustees as being the date when, either alone or together with other funds then available for the ...
Clare Arthurs and Nicole Finlayson peer into their contractual crystal ball ‘The parties simply had not turned their minds to the set of circumstances that actually arose, ie a sale at a sum other than the sum contemplated.’ The facts of Barton v Gwyn-Jones [2019] appear straightforward. When Mr Barton verbally contracted with Foxpace Ltd …
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Nicholas Broomfield considers the decision in Mears v Costplan ‘A “material” defect is not necessarily a breach capable of preventing practical completion or permitting termination of the contract; such a conclusion risks giving rise to “commercial absurdity”.’ Mears Ltd v Costplan Services (South East) Ltd [2018] concerned the development of student accommodation in Plymouth. Mears …
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Martin McKeague and Will Cousins analyse recent key cases on the interpretation of overage agreements ‘Mr Biden’s argument was that the overage provision gave him complete discretion as to whether and when to sell the properties and, therefore, whether and when to pay the overage.’ In recent years and months, contractual interpretation, and in particular …
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