Kenig v Thomson Snell & Passmore LLP [2024] WTLR 595

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Summer 2024 #195

The claimant and his sister were beneficiaries of the will of their mother. The defendant, a solicitors’ firm, was instructed by the sole executor to administer the estate. The defendant’s original costs estimate was £10,000-£15,000 plus VAT, but its invoices totalled £54,410.99 plus VAT and expenses. The claimant challenged the fees charged and applied for an assessment under s71(3) Solicitors Act 1973, which a costs judge ordered. The defendant appealed on grounds restricted to Tim Martin Interiors Ltd v Akin Gump LLP [2011], namely, that it was not open to a benefici...

Rangers v Advocate General for Scotland [2017] WTLR 1093

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Autumn 2017 #169

The appeal concerned a tax avoidance scheme by which employers paid remuneration to their employees through an employees’ remuneration trust in the hope that the scheme would avoid liability to income tax and Class 1 national insurance contributions. The question on appeal was whether an employee’s remuneration was taxable as their emoluments or earnings when it was paid to a third party in circumstances in which the employee had no prior entitlement to receive it himself or herself.

The employing companies, including RFC, operated the tax avoidance scheme in the tax years between...

Third Parties: Crossing the line

Lehna Hewitt reviews the courts’ approach to cases where an order may be made on the basis of assets owned by a third party ‘There will be occasions when it becomes permissible for a judge deliberately to frame his orders in a form which affords judicious encouragement to third parties.’ The recent Court of Appeal …
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Third Parties: To join or not to join?

Vicki McLynn considers the question of the interests of third parties in financial remedy proceedings ‘When the family court is determining a dispute between a spouse and a third party it must be approached on the same basis as if it were being determined by the Chancery Division.’ The issue of third-party interests in financial …
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