Re LMS [2020] WTLR 1345
Winter 2020 #181The applicant was the mother and an attorney of LMS, a 21 year old who had been assessed on 11 July 2020 as lacking capacity to make financial decisions. LMS’s grandfather had died, having made a will under which 30% of his residuary estate was held in trust for LMS contingently on attaining the age of 25. LMS was in receipt of a means-tested benefit, Employment and Support Allowance, and her placement in a specialist residential college was funded by the local authority, the residential component of which was also means tested. Her right to receive those means-tested benefits would ceas...
Mackay v Wesley [2020] WTLR 1359
Winter 2020 #181The appellant was appointed a trustee of the Ellen Morris 1990 Settlement (settlement) by a deed of appointment and retirement of trustees dated 19 March 2003. Her co-trustees were her father, the defendant, and Browne Jacobson Trustees Ltd (BJTL). Previously, a decision had been taken to embark on a ‘round the world’ capital gains tax avoidance scheme in relation to the settlement. This involved appointing Mauritian trustees and realising offshore gains where there was no capital gains tax, distributing the proceeds and then appointing UK-resident trustees in the same tax year of assess...
Re Noble [2020] WTLR 1371
Winter 2020 #181John Robinson Noble (Mr Noble) died in 2014. The plaintiff was his youngest daughter, and the first and second defendants were respectively his eldest daughter and his son. Mr Noble left a will, of which the first defendant was the sole executrix. The will provided that Mr Noble’s estate should be held in trust for such of his children as survived him by 14 days and if more than one then in equal shares. His will expressed the wish that either of his daughters be permitted to live in his dwelling house (the family home) for so long as they require, but making clear that this expression w...
O’Neill v Holland [2020] WTLR 1397
Winter 2020 #181This was a second appeal against the decision of HHJ Pelling to overturn the trial judge’s order declaring inter alia that A was a 50% beneficial owner of A and R’s former home (the property) under a common intention constructive trust.
The trial judge had found that A’s father had bought the property in 1998 with the intention that it should be A and R’s family home. In 2008, A’s father had transferred the property to R for nil consideration. The trial judge had found that A’s father intended A to have a beneficial interest in it and had originally planned to transfer it into A a...
PTNZ v AS & ors [2020] WTLR 1423
Winter 2020 #181In the course of the claimant’s application as trustee of four discretionary trusts in similar terms governed by English law for the blessing of momentous decisions, AS (the settlor and the original protector of the trusts) died.
The trusts had been varied soon after they were declared to expand the powers of the protector to give and withhold consent to the exercise of powers by the trustee. In the absence of a protector the trustee was free to exercise those powers without obtaining a third-party consent. The trusts were administered in Jersey on behalf of the claimant, a profes...
The Donkey Sanctuary & ors v Bacchus & ors [2020] WTLR 1447
Winter 2020 #181Leonard Dunthorn (Mr Dunthorn) died in 2018, leaving a will pursuant to which the residue of his estate, after a pecuniary legacy, was to pass to his sister Ruby Watts (Mrs Watts), provided she survived him by 28 days. If she did not do so, the residue was to be divided between ten named charities. Mrs Watts survived Mr Dunthorn by more than 28 days and became entitled to his residue. She in turn passed away in 2019, leaving a will which left her residue (after a number of pecuniary legacies) to 11 named charities, the first ten of which were those charities that had been named in Mr Dun...
Webb v Webb [2020] WTLR 1461
Winter 2020 #181The appeal arose in a dispute between husband and wife about the matrimonial property available for division.
After Mr and Mrs Webb were married in 2005, Mr Webb established two family trusts for the purpose of acquiring land and other assets in the Cook Islands (the Arorangi Trust and the Webb Family Trust).
The Arorangi Trust was established with Mr Webb as sole trustee, and Mr Webb and his son Sebastian as the two beneficiaries. The deed provided for a consultant to assist the trustee and for who could remove the trustee, request early vesting of the property and consent...