Zedra Fiduciary Services (UK) Ltd v HM Attorney General [2024] WTLR 363

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Spring 2024 #194

In 1928 Gaspard Farrer established a fund which he intended, in due course, to pay off the National Debt in its entirety, either by itself or in combination with other funds established for the same purpose. The fund was specified to be held until a specified date of application for investment and accumulation, and thereafter ‘to transfer and pay the same to the National Debt Commissioners to be applied by them in reduction of the National Debt’, with a power at any time to determine that ‘part of the National Fund should be forthwith applied in reduction of the National Debt.’ Subsequen...

HM Attorney General v Zedra Fiduciary Services (UK) Ltd [2022] WTLR 557

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Summer 2022 #187

The Attorney General applied for a cy-près scheme to be made pursuant to the Charities Act 2011, ss62 and 67 with respect to a charitable trust known as the National Fund. The defendant as trustee of the National Fund (the trustee) invited the court to direct an alternative scheme.

The National Fund had been established in 1928 for the purpose of the discharge of the National Debt. By the date of the hearing the National Fund held £600m, and the National Debt, as at the end of October 2021, was £2,277.6bn.

In its judgment of 20 November 2020 (...

Rittson-Thomas & ors v Oxfordshire County Council [2021] WTLR 679

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Summer 2021 #183

The appeal concerned Nettlebed School in Oxfordshire. In 1914 and 1928, Mr Robert Fleming conveyed land to Oxfordshire County Council (the council) under the School Sites Act 1841 (SSA 1841). The benefactions enabled a new school building to be built. The school operated on the site until 2006. In the 1990s, the council decided to relocate the school to a new building with improved facilities on other land owned by the council (adjacent to the old site), and the pupils moved to the new building in February 2006. The council’s plan was to sell the old site to pay o...

Routier & anr v HMRC [2020] WTLR 281

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | Spring 2020 #178

C died in 2007 in Jersey, leaving her residuary estate on trust (the trust) for purposes that were agreed to have been exclusively charitable under English law. C directed in her will that the proper law of the trust was the law of Jersey. The appellants, who were domiciled in Jersey, were appointed to be C’s executors and the trustees of the trust. C’s estate included assets in the United Kingdom amounting to £1.7m. In 2010 the appellants retired as trustees (but not as executors) and were replaced by a UK resident trustee. C’s will was then amended so as to make the proper law of the T...

Phillipe & ors v Cameron & ors [2012] EWHC 1040 (Ch)

Wills & Trusts Law Reports | September 2012 #122

The claimants were the trustees of the St Andrew’s (Cheam) Lawn Tennis Club Trust (the trustees). The trustees sought declarations as to the beneficial ownership of land occupied by the St Andrew’s (Cheam) Lawn Tennis Club (the club) since 1938 (the land).

The church now known as St Andrew’s United Reformed Church Cheam (the church) was originally founded in the 1920s. From the church’s inception many of its members played tennis together and in 1930 they established a tennis club which was to become the club. The club’s first general meeting was held...

Charitable Trusts: Law in action

Cuppage v Lawson is an example of how the Charitable Trusts (Validation) Act 1954 is working in practice, as William Henderson explains ‘The Act often now “does what it says on the tin” and validates trusts that would otherwise be void.’At a technical level this decision of HH Judge Hodge QC, sitting as a judge …
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