Dryden v Young & ors [2024] WTLR 843

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Autumn 2024 #196

The deceased made a will dated 26 May 2016. The will gifted the residue of the deceased’s estate in equal shares to 15 charitable beneficiaries. The construction of seven of those gifts was in doubt.

The gifts in question had been carried over from the deceased’s previous wills, of which only one had been located. Will files did not survive and the drafting solicitor had little recollection of what the deceased had intended. There was little evidence of charitable gifting made by the deceased in life.

The probate value of the deceased’s estate was £1.48m and each one-fiftee...

Zedra Fiduciary Services (UK) Ltd v HM Attorney General [2024] WTLR 363

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Spring 2024 #194

In 1928 Gaspard Farrer established a fund which he intended, in due course, to pay off the National Debt in its entirety, either by itself or in combination with other funds established for the same purpose. The fund was specified to be held until a specified date of application for investment and accumulation, and thereafter ‘to transfer and pay the same to the National Debt Commissioners to be applied by them in reduction of the National Debt’, with a power at any time to determine that ‘part of the National Fund should be forthwith applied in reduction of the National Debt.’ Subsequen...

Sidney and North v British Columbia 2016 BCSC 589

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | January/February 2017 #166

The petitioner, a non-profit society, became the trustee (T) of a charitable purpose trust of land and premises. T sought construction and amendment of the trust deed.

The trust deed provided, inter alia, that a certain portion of the land in the trust known as the Cenotaph Area be held in trust as a site solely for the purposes of a memorial cairn for Canadian soldiers killed in World War I. If any part of the lands in the trust were expropriated, the trustee was to use any expropriation proceeds to purchase other land and hold the balance of the proceeds in trust for th...