Setchim & anr v Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs & Ors [2014] EWHC 2218 (Ch)
November 2014 #144The Commonwealth Institute (CIC) (a charitable company limited by guarantee) was placed in members’ voluntary winding-up on 19 July 2007. The CIC had a complex history which dated back to 1887. In the 1950s HM Government (HMG) proposed that the predecessors to the CIC trustees should surrender their lease of their premises in South Kensington (the Kensington building) and move to a new premises at Holland Park. The predecessors of CIC were in receipt of rent and benefited from free utilities (the associated entitlements) under the terms of a sub-lease of the Kensington building. Th...
ZYN, R (on the application of) v Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council [2014] EWHC 1918
November 2014 #144ZYN was seriously disabled and was reliant on community care services, part of which was provided by Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council (the council). She had substantial capital assets, amounting to around £550,000 deriving from compensation paid in settlement of a personal injury claim. This case concerned the statutory exceptions to the general government policy that those with assets are required to contribute to the cost of services to the cost of services they receive from a local authority.
The council had sought to charge ZYN for the full cost of social care services whi...
Re Dion Investments Pty Ltd [2013] NSWSC 1941
October 2014 #143The Dion Family Trust was set up by deed as a discretionary trust in Papua New Guinea in August 1973 when Papua New Guinea was an external territory of Australia. It contains the following clause:
’15 [all potential beneficiaries] or any of them may at any time with or without the consent of the Trustee by deed revoke all or any of the trusts hereby declared and declare other trusts of the settled property and income derived therefrom in favour of such person or persons the said [potential beneficiaries] or any of them shall in their absolute discretion determine with or wi...
Giles v Royal National Institute for the Blind & Ors [2014] EWHC 1373 (Ch)
October 2014 #143The claimant claimed as the administratrix of the estate of Ellen Bolton (Ellen) for rectification of a deed of variation by which she had purported to vary the will of Hilda Bolton (Hilda).
Hilda had died on 6 February 2006. Her sister, Ellen, died on 11 September 2007. By her last will Hilda had benefited Ellen in two respects: as the beneficiary of a specific devise of a particular freehold property (the property) at clause 2(a) of the will and also as the sole residuary beneficiary under clause 5 of the will. As Ellen survived Hilda these gifts took effect. The gifts were char...
Hart & anr v Burbidge & anr
October 2014 #143In 2006 the deceased made a will directing a sale of two properties, No 7 and No 43 (the properties), with the proceeds to be shared between her sons (the Harts). On the same date the deceased gave another property, Unit 15, to her daughter and son-in-law, Mr and Mrs Burbidge, and also released them from a debt of £44,000. In 2007 the deceased made a further will leaving No 7 to the Harts and No 43 to her siblings and any grandchildren surviving her with the residue to be divided equally amongst her children.
Having decided to live with the Burbidges, the deceased transferred her...
Kaur v Dhaliwal & anr [2014] EWHC 1991 (Ch)
October 2014 #143The claimant had made an application under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 (Act) for provision out of the estate of Harcharan Singh Dhaliwal (deceased) who died on 7 June 2009. The question had arisen, as a preliminary issue, whether the claimant was a person who ‘during the whole of the period of two years immediately before the date when the deceased died… was living (a) in the same household as the deceased, and (b) as the… wife of the deceased’ within the meaning of s1(1A) of the Act. The claimant and the deceased became engaged, shortly aft...
Kershaw v Roberts & anr [2014] EWHC 1037 (Ch)
October 2014 #143This hearing was an appeal from a decision of His Honr Judge Philip in which that judge found that an earlier hearing in the matter had not been a case management conference (CMC) and that therefore the respondent defendants were under no obligation to file and serve a costs budget seven days in advance of it. The claimant had contended that the earlier hearing had been a CMC and renewed that submission in the current hearing. The claimant’s submissions raised general issues as to whether the first hearing in a Part 8 claim, alternatively the first directions hearing, in such a cla...
King v Dubrey & ors [2014] EWCH 2083 (Ch)
October 2014 #143The deceased, June Fairbrother, (D), a retired policewoman, made a will in March 1998 leaving legacies to friends and family, the 3rd to 14th defendants ,the executors and legatees and the residue to the 15th to 21st defendants, animal charities (the charities). In June 2007 D’s nephew, Mr King, the claimant (C) had a conversation with her. She was increasingly elderly and frightened of going into a home, and he agreed to move in with her to look after her. He had spent some time in prison as a result of an offence under the Companies Act and was living in the property of a business asso...
Oatley & ors v Oatley Powney & ors [2014] EWHC 1956 (Ch)
October 2014 #143In January 1995 Mr Donald Oatley, his wife Mrs Patricia Oatley, their three sons Andrew, Martin and Michael (the three claimants), and a solicitor, Mr Boyd, signed a deed of settlement. The beneficiaries were the spouses and issue of the claimants. Mrs Oatley died in 2002. Mr Oatley contracted cancer in 2006 and died in January 2007.
The Oatleys own a farming company with 4,333 shares owned by each claimant and 13,001 by the settlement. In 1985 Mr and Mrs Oatley created two discretionary trusts for some of their shares of the company, with the beneficiaries being their issue and ...
Rawstron & anr (executrices of the estate of Lucian Freud) v Freud [2014] EWHC 2577 (Ch)
October 2014 #143Lucian Freud (the deceased) achieved international recognition as an outstanding painter and draughtsman, and he acquired considerable wealth over the course of his long and successful life. His final will was dated 10 May 2006 (the 2006 will), superseding his previous will of 25 June 2004 (the 2004 will). Both wills were professionally drafted. His residuary estate, after payment of legacies and inheritance tax, was estimated at around £42m.
The claim was brought by the claimants under CPR Part 8 in their capacity as executrices of the deceased’s final will. The first claimant wa...