Keeling v Keeling & anr [2018] WTLR 173
Spring 2018 #171Ellen Exler died intestate at the age of 91 on 12 November 2012 (the Deceased). Her residuary estate passed on her intestacy to her surviving brothers, Stephen Keeling (Stephen), Frank Keeling (Frank), and to the children of her late sister, Lilian Walker, in equal 1/3 shares. Virtually the whole value of the estate was represented by the Deceased’s home, Hadley House. A grant of letters of administration was issued to Stephen alone on 22 March 2013. On 27 March 2013 Owen Kenny, solicitors instructed to act in the administration of the estate, wrote to the beneficiaries, other than Steph...
Lee & anr v Lee & anr [2018] WTLR 197
Spring 2018 #171Facts
In October 2002 the testator (T) and the first claimant (C1) bought Little Hendra Farm, Looe, Cornwall (the farm). They purchased as joint tenants. The farm consisted of a bungalow and some fields, within three registered titles. Title X included Village Field and Title Y included the Bungalow and Borehole and Church Fields. In fact, Title Z was the subject of a conveyancing mix-up, which was discovered later and resolved in 2008 by a transfer of the title, using form TR1, to T and C1 expressly as ‘joint tenants’.
In 2007, T and C1 made wills in substantially similar ...
Lewis & ors v Tamplin & ors [2018] WTLR 215
Spring 2018 #171The claimants/applicants brought a part 8 claim, as beneficiaries of a trust of land in Glamorgan known as the Tamplin trust, for disclosure of documents and information by the defendant/respondent trustees. This claim was founded on the basis that the trustees owe a duty to account to the beneficiaries for their stewardship of the trust assets. They also made an application for pre-action disclosure; the court gave judgment on both matters.
The defendants opposed both the claim and the application on a number of grounds. Firstly, the beneficiaries had already received sufficient ...
Macmillan Cancer Support v Hayes & anr [2018] WTLR 243
Spring 2018 #171Peter Thomson and his wife, Sheila Mary Thomson, were a loving and devoted lifelong married couple who had no children. He was 84 and had recently been diagnosed with prostrate cancer and had a grossly enlarged aorta which could rupture at any time. She was aged 88 and, due to the severity of her dementia, had been consigned to live in a care home. They had both made similarly worded wills in favour of each other and, on the death of the survivor, for the benefit of charities and friends. According to the findings of fact made by the coroner, on 18 April 2015 Peter collected Sheila from ...
Nield-Moir v Freeman [2018] WTLR 255
Spring 2018 #171The deceased died intestate. The claimant (N) and the defendant (F) were both born to the deceased’s late wife (W) during her marriage to the deceased, such that a rebuttable presumption that they were both children of the deceased arose. Letters of administration were granted to F. F later sold the deceased’s house to herself.
N denied that F was the child of the deceased. N therefore sought revocation of the grant to F, as well as a grant to herself, a declaration as to her beneficial entitlement to the whole of the estate, and an order setting aside the sale of the house.
OH v Craven [2018] WTLR 275
Spring 2018 #171Two applications were before the Court, involving the proceeds of personal injury actions that had been paid into the Court Funds Office following compromises. During each action and its compromise, the claimant was represented by a litigation friend: for OH, as a minor, and for AKB, lacking in litigation capacity.
OH’s litigation friend applied to the Court for payment of the proceeds of his compromise (just under £2m) to a trustee to hold them on the terms of a bare trust for his benefit. The trustee was to be a trust corporation that was incorporated and operated by his litigat...
Palliser v HMRC [2018] WTLR 287
Spring 2018 #171The appellant, Mr Palliser, disputed the valuation, for inheritance tax purposes, of a property in which his father’s estate owned an 88.4% share in the long leasehold and a third of the freehold title of the building it which it is located. HMRC had determined that the market value of the estate’s share at the date of the deceased’s death was £1,829,880. This determination was subsequently upheld; Mr Palliser appealed against those decisions, and submitted that the correct valuation should be £1,113,840.
The principal matter in issue was the correct interpretation of s.160 of the...
Public Trustee v Harrison [2018] WTLR 299
Spring 2018 #171By an Indenture dated 6 March 1925 (“Indenture”), Charles Harrison (“Settlor”) settled property on his only child, Jeannette Harrison (“Life Tenant”). By Clause 18(ii), the Life Tenant was given a testamentary power of appointment in the event of dying without issue in favour of nephews of nieces of the Settlor and/or their issue subject to a proviso that the Trust Fund or the shares thereof should be retained by the Trustees on such trusts and with and subject to such powers and provisions as would for the time being be applicable to a share appropriated by them to the object or objects...
Roberts & anr v Fresco [2018] WTLR 309
Spring 2018 #171The High Court was asked to determine, as a preliminary issue, whether a potential claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 (the 1975 Act) by a surviving husband against his late wife’s estate abated on the death of the husband. The wife (Mrs Milbour) died on 5 January 2014, the husband (Mr Milbour) shortly thereafter on 20 October 2014. Mr Milbour did not bring a claim under the 1975 Act against Mrs Milbour’s estate during his lifetime.
The net value of Mrs Milbour’s estate was £16,776,054. By her will Mrs Milbour left Mr Milbour a pecuniary leg...
Tish & ors v Olley & ors [2018] WTLR 327
Spring 2018 #171The claimants, the former wife of the deceased and their children by that marriage, brought claims under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975.
Following the breakdown of the marriage between the first claimant and the deceased, in 2007 a consent order was made by the Principal Registry of the Family Division disposing of the first claimant’s ancillary relief application. That order provided, inter alia, that the deceased would pay £11,000 a year in respect of the children of the marriage until they attained the age of 18 years or, if later, complet...