National Westminster Bank v Lucas [2014] EWCA Civ 1632

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | May 2015 #149

Jimmy Savile died in October 2011. His will dated 24 July 2006 named NatWest as his executor and left the residue of his estate to the Jimmy Savile Charitable Trust (the trust) which he had created in 1984. Probate was obtained on 8 March 2012 with a net estate of £4.3m. The bank placed s27 Trustee Act adverts on 5 January 2012.

Following an ITV programme broadcast on 4 October 2012 accusing Mr Savile of being a serial sex offender, NatWest began to receive letters from potential claimants seeking compensation from the estate. NatWest quickly appreciated that the estate c...

Cotton & anr v Earl of Cardigan & ors [2014] EWCA Civ 1312

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | January/February 2015 #146

The claimants were the present trustees of the Savernake Estate, the principal asset of which was a grade I listed house known as Tottenham House together with a dilapidated grade II listed stable block (together Tottenham House). Unoccupied since the 1990s and decaying fast, it was proposed to sell Tottenham House not least because of the need to repay significant borrowing from the bank. There was no dispute as to the trustees’ decision to sell; what was disputed was the process by which that sale should be achieved. The beneficiaries of the trust were the first defendant (Lord C...

Trustees: A momentous decision

Sukhninder Panesar explains the importance of the court’s recent decision in Cotton v Cardigan [2014] to trustees’ powers ‘From a practical point of view, the decision reaffirms the need for trustees and their legal advisers to make sure that they have prepared and presented such applications with detailed evidential matters.’ The much publicised sale of …
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