September 2014 #159 – Law Journals

Musings From Manchester: Taking a view

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Geoffrey Shindler is perplexed by divergent approaches in major judicial decisions ‘The solicitor got it wrong in Marley v Rawlings and the trustees got it wrong in many of the “Hastings-Bass” cases. So why in one set of cases are the judges prepared to be, shall we say, lenient and in the other cases strict?’Very …

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Deathbed Gifts: Keeping control

Mark Pawlowski examines to what extent it is possible to make a deathbed gift of land ‘The handing over of keys to the house… may be capable of evidencing the passing of dominion over it because, although keys do not represent ownership of the property, they nevertheless constitute the physical means of obtaining possession.’ Essentially, …

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Trusts: Trust comes first

Roadchef is a straightforward application of Hastings Bass to an EBT, finds Marilyn McKeever ‘This sorry tale is a reminder to the trustees of employee benefit trusts, pension schemes and, indeed, family trusts that they have onerous duties which they must exercise in the interests of their beneficiaries.’ In the case of Roadchef (Employee Benefit …

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Testamentary Capacity: Eccentricity allowed

Ailsa Moorhouse sets out a case that upholds a person’s right to leave their assets to whoever they choose ‘For the estimated one third to one half of the adult population in England and Wales who have made wills, the case of The Vegetarian Society is important, being, as it is, up-to-date evidence and reassurance …

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Trusts In Business: Neat

Graeme Nuttall OBE sees employee ownership trusts as the perfect succession solution ‘EOTs will deliver benefits to selling shareholders, the employees that work in the company or group controlled by the EOT and should help the UK economy by creating successful long-lasting businesses.’ Too many owner managers have overlooked employee ownership as a business succession …

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Undue Influence: Tread carefully

Schomberg v Taylor demonstrates the high evidential burden of challenging a will under undue influence. Mark Keenan and David Hickmott explain ‘Where an allegation of undue influence is made, the burden of proof is on the party alleging the misconduct and the civil standard of the balance of probabilities applies.’ There are various grounds upon …

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BPR: When Best not to invest

James Hardaker and Tom Collins look at lessons to be learned from Best v HMRC [2014] ‘The message coming out of the Best decision is that it is becoming increasing difficulty for property letting or similar businesses to avoid being categorised as wholly or mainly investment companies for the purposes of IHT.’ Business Property Relief …

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