Re Devillebichot; Brennan v Prior & ors [2013] EWHC 2867 (Ch)
December 2013 #135Francois Devillebichot (Francois) died on 3 March 2011. He made a will dated 19 February 2011. The proponents of the will were four of the defendants, while the claimant Mrs Chloe Brennan was Francois’ only child and sole heir under the intestacy rules. The will left £100,000 to Chloe, a studio flat in France to his sister Jacqueline and the residuary estate to his four siblings. After inheritance tax the net estate was £450,000.
Chloe alleged that her father was happy to die intestate in the knowledge that she would inherit his entire estate. Prior to the contested will he had ne...
M v M & ors [2013] EWHC 2534 (Fam)
December 2013 #135The transcript of this judgment is reported in part from para 164 onwards and starts with a discussion of the law. No part of the report provides a factual narrative.
Held (allowing the wife’s claim for financial relief):
The court had power on divorce to order a party to the marriage to transfer to the other party such property as may be so specified to which that party was entitled, either in possession or reversion. In this case almost all the wealth created by the husband during the course of the marriage was held through offshore company structures and the ques...
Patel v Mirza [2013] EWHC 1892 (Ch)
December 2013 #135The claimant (Mr Patel) became friends with Mr Georgiou in 2004. Mr Patel was introduced to the defendant (Mr Mirza) at the end of 2008 or the beginning of 2009 by Mr Georgiou, probably at one of the poker games Mr Georgiou hosted every Friday evening.
Mr Mirza was and is employed as a foreign exchange broker and also had a personal spread-betting account.
In August 2009 Mr Patel stated that he was approached by Mr Georgiou with a deal he had been offered by Mr Mirza – Mr Mirza would use his spread-betting account to bet on the movement of RBS shares and that Mr Mirza knew ...
Ramsay v HMRC [2013] UKUT 0226 (TCC)
December 2013 #135The appellant appealed against a decision of the First-tier Tribunal (FTT). The issue before the FTT was whether Mrs Ramsay had transferred to TPQ Developments Ltd (TPQ) a ‘business as a going concern’ in exchange for shares issued by TPQ so as to qualify for roll-over relief under s162 Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 (TCGA 1992). The FTT found that what Mrs Ramsay had transferred to TPQ was not a business within the meaning of s162 of the TCGA 1992.
Mr and Mrs Ramsay owned a property known as Moat House in Belfast (the property). On 16 September 2004 they trans...
Re Stolkin; Greaves v Stolkin [2013] EWHC 1140 (Ch)
December 2013 #135The deceased testator, Leslie Stolkin, (T) had two sons from his marriage, the defendant Gary (G) and Mark (M). T divorced their mother in 1989. In September 1997 Pauline Greaves the claimant, (P), also divorced, moved in with T as cohabitant and became financially dependent on him. In 2001, T executed a will effectively leaving his entire estate to G, and also naming him as sole executor and trustee unless he died before T in which case M, a successful and wealthy businessman, would inherit . The will made no provision for P, but T left some notes directing that she was to receive regul...
Tociapski v Tociapski [2013] EWHC 1770 (Ch)
December 2013 #135The claimant and defendant are the two sons of Mr Igor Tociapski (the deceased), who died on 12 March 2010 and had made a will dated 20 June 2007 and a later will dated 13 May 2009 (the 2009 will). The 2007 will shared the estate between the two sons. The 2009 will gave the entire estate to the defendant. By a transfer dated 12 February 2010 (the transfer), the deceased gave to the defendant a property known as Hillcrest Cottage, in Northamptonshire.
The claimant sought to set aside the 2009 will on the grounds that the deceased did not know and approve its contents alternatively...
Travers Will Trust v HMRC [2013] UKFTT 436 (TC)
December 2013 #135PL Travers (PLT) was the creator of the fictional literary character of Mary Poppins. In 1960 PLT entered into an agreement with Walt Disney which assigned parts of her copyright in the character to him. In this agreement PLT undertook not to exploit her dramatic, TV or radio rights in relation to Mary Poppins without Walt Disney’s consent.
PLT died in April 1996, two years after she had made an agreement with a theatre production company (CML) which related to the grant of an exclusive copyright licence to stage a show based on her books (the 1994 agreement). This agreement provi...
Jeffery v Jeffery [2013] EWHC 1942 (Ch)
November 2013 #134This was a retrial. The original trial in November 2012 was conducted in the absence of the defendant Andrew Jeffrey.
Daphne Jeffrey died in February 2010, aged 76, having divorced her husband David ten days before her death. She had two children – Nicholas and Andrew. She made a will in 2007 appointing Nicholas and Christopher Eyre (a friend left nothing in the will) as her executors and leaving her estate between Nicholas and Andrew’s three children. Prior to that she had made wills in 1982, 2002 and 2004. In 2008 she gifted two properties to Nicholas.
David and Daphne se...
McIntosh v McIntosh 1LU01921
November 2013 #134Kevin McIntosh (the deceased) died intestate on 13 September 2010 at the age of 34. He left a net estate of £333,564. He also left two pension scheme funds that were nominated, one in full to his estranged wife (the defendant) and the other as to 70% to the defendant and as to 10% to each of his younger brother Brian McIntosh (the claimant), his mother and his sister.
The claimant stated that the deceased had been maintaining him immediately prior to his death as he gave him monthly payments of £200 (which he spent on alcohol, cigarettes and petrol for his car). He had received t...
Pagel & anr v Farman [2013] EWHC 2210 (Comm)
November 2013 #134In 2001 Mr Pagel (P) and Mr Farman (F), set up a hedge fund. At first they shared responsibility for marketing and investment equally, but F began to concentrate on investing and P dealt with marketing and client relationships and F began to find the split unfair, so that from 2004 the 50/50 split was renegotiated and F received two thirds of the performance fees, but paid the cost of fixed employee bonuses and shared management fees 50/50 with P. Initially, both partners had to sign confirmations for all withdrawals but from autumn 2006 this only applied to amounts over £5,000. For a nu...