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Dorey & ors v Ashton [2024] WTLR 121
Spring 2024 #194The plaintiffs were three of the four children of the deceased, who died in 2015. They contended that the deceased lacked capacity when making wills in 2004. Instructions for the wills had been taken by the defendant, who had prepared them and supervised their execution. Had the wills not been made, the deceased’s estate would have passed to the plaintiffs and their sibling, subject to a life interest in realty for the deceased’s widow; the effect of the wills was to confer on the widow additional benefits. Following the death of the deceased, the plaintiffs and their sibling challenged ...
Hotel Portfolio II UK Ltd & anr v Ruhan & ors [2024] WTLR 145
Spring 2024 #194This was an appeal against a decision of Foxton J ordering the second defendant to pay £102m in compensation for dishonest assistance along with nearly £60m in interest.
The first defendant had been a director of the first claimant. In breach of fiduciary duty, the first defendant had caused the first claimant to sell company assets related to several London hotels to a corporate purchaser in which the first defendant had an undisclosed interest. The sale was at an objectively reasonable market price. The purchaser later sold the hotels for a large profit (partly due to having dev...
King v King [2024] WTLR 177
Spring 2024 #194Eric Stanley King (deceased), a divorcee, died intestate on 15 April 2021. Rule 22 of the Non-Contentious Probate Rules 1987 (NCPR 1987) set out the order of priority for a grant of letters of administration on an intestacy; in this case, the persons entitled were the appellant and respondent (being the children of the deceased) and the three children of a third child who had predeceased the deceased. Where more than one person of the same degree was entitled to a grant, the court had a discretion as to which of them it should appoint as administrator. In this case the entitlement to a g...
Leeson & anr v McPherson [2024] WTLR 197
Spring 2024 #194On 6 June 2017, Ms Leeson died in Denmark. Her husband, the defendant, was prosecuted and ultimately acquitted of her murder. After such acquittal, civil proceedings were issued alleging inter alia that the defendant unlawfully killed Ms Leeson and the inquest proceedings resumed. In the civil proceedings, the parties were ordered to and did produce a schedule of agreed facts. Such schedule was based on the disclosure in the civil proceedings, including third-party disclosure from the police. The claimants’ solicitors acting in the inquest proceedings asked for permission that such sched...
National Westminster Bank plc & ors v Ludlow Trust Co Ltd & ors [2024] WTLR 239
Spring 2024 #194Each of the claimant banks were part of the NatWest Group and appointed as trustee of a number of trusts. Following the decision by the NatWest Group in 2019 to divest itself of its trusteeships and trust administration business, a bidding process was commenced seeking a replacement trustee for 3,946 trusts, both private and charitable, and the first defendant (Ludlow) was ultimately the successful bidder based upon a detailed scoring system. The trust administration business was transferred to Ludlow for £1 and Ludlow agreed to pay all of the claimants’ costs of transferring the various...
Richefond & ors v Dillon & ors [2024] WTLR 253
Spring 2024 #194The first claimant and her co-executors sought to propound a will which was resisted by the first to third defendants. In a previous judgment the Master had determined that the will was valid as to part but the gift of residue to the first claimant failed because the testator did not know and approve of that part in light of his illiteracy and the lack of proper explanation from the will draftsman. The result was that the testator’s home was held on trust for the first claimant’s occupation but the residuary estate passed on the statutory trusts of intestacy between the five defendants.<...
Shah v Commissioners for HMRC [2024] WTLR 265
Spring 2024 #194The executor of the estate of the deceased appealed against a notice of determination under s221 Inheritance Tax Act 1984 that the deceased was domiciled in England and Wales at the time of his death.
The deceased was born in Karachi in what was then British India in 1929. He attended school and university in Karachi in the 1940s. Following partition, in 1947 he moved from Karachi, Pakistan to Gujarat, India to complete his university course. On completion, he moved to Tanzania. In 1954 he moved to the UK to undertake a further degree, returning to Tanzania on completion in 1957. ...
Thandi v Saggu [2024] WTLR 283
Spring 2024 #194The claimant was the freehold registered proprietor of 7 Parkside Parade, Dartford, Kent (7 Parkside Parade). The defendant was managing director of a construction company called Earlswood Interiors Ltd (Earlswood Interiors). Earlswood Interiors carried out some work on the claimant’s home, a different property. There was an issue with payment for additional works. In April 2018 Earlswood Interiors had been owed £15,000 and had demanded that sum from the claimant. It was found that no unwarranted or illegitimate pressure had been applied to the claimant but she had felt under pressure to...
Winter & anr v Winter & anr [2024] WTLR 327
Spring 2024 #194The court was concerned with the claim of Richard and Adrian Winter to challenge the dispositions made by their father, Albert Winter, in his will dated 30 April 2015 (the 2015 will) which left the residue of his estate to their brother, Philip. The principal asset in Albert’s estate was his share in a market garden business operated by the family for many years, and since 1998 as a partnership between Albert, his late wife Brenda, the claimants and the first defendant. In January 2004 the partnership business was transferred to a company.
The claim was put on two principal bases....
Zedra Fiduciary Services (UK) Ltd v HM Attorney General [2024] WTLR 363
Spring 2024 #194In 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...
Re A [2023] WTLR 1195
Winter 2023 #193On 9 May 2014, the Adult granted a continuing and welfare power of attorney in favour of her son and one of her daughters (who consented to be attorneys) (the First PoA). A statutory certificate confirming the Adult’s capacity to grant the First PoA was signed by her solicitor. The First PoA was registered by the Office for the Public Guardian (OPG) on 21 June 2014.
On 17 November 2020, a consultant psychiatrist diagnosed the Adult with early Alzheimer’s Dementia, and assessed the Adult as having a short-term memory of 5-10 minutes. The psychiatrist gave evidence that the Adult wa...
Bowser v Smith & anr [2023] WTLR 1207
Winter 2023 #193The appellant solicitor applied under s50 Administration of Justice Act 1985 to remove his co-executor, the deceased’s widow. At a hearing before Bacon J the parties agreed by consent that both executors should be removed and replaced with an independent administrator, but could not agree on costs. The judge gave directions for written submissions to be exchanged, after which a decision was made on the papers without a hearing. The appellant was ordered to pay personally the respondent’s costs on the standard basis (with the balance paid out of the estate) and was deprived of his indemni...
Chopping v Cowan & anr [2023] WTLR 1237
Winter 2023 #193The deceased died on 2 July 2008 leaving a will dated 6 December 2007. The claimant was the deceased’s daughter who was the beneficiary of the residue of the deceased’s estate. The defendants were the deceased’s executors who had acted as the deceased’s solicitor and tax adviser during his life. The will contained a charging clause. The estate had a gross value of £3,814,818. The first defendant had charged legal fees of £78,818.12, and other professional fees from solicitors and tax advisers had also been incurred totalling around £100,000. The claimant challenged the fees borne by the ...
Colicci & ors v Grinberg & anr [2023] WTLR 1249
Winter 2023 #193The court was concerned with costs following the trial of a claim relating to the estate of Ernesto Colicci (deceased). Recorder Mark Anderson KC had handed down judgment on 18 May 2023 following the trial in March 2023. He reserved judgment on costs after further submissions at a consequential hearing on 19 July.
The claimants’ principal claim, based on interpretation of an agreement, succeeded. The claimants were therefore the successful parties. The Recorder acknowledged that the general rule is that the unsuccessful party will be ordered to pay the costs of the successful part...
Commissioners for HMRC v Personal Representatives of Vigne [2023] WTLR 1259
Winter 2023 #193The late Mrs Maureen Vigne died on 29 May 2012. At that time, she was the sole owner of approximately 30 acres of land. From 2008 a livery business was operated on or from the land, offering a package which included:
(1) the provision of worming products, including administering them where and when necessary (if an owner was unable and/or unwilling so to do), on a quarterly basis; (2) providing the horses with hay feed during the winter months when the grass might not provide a sufficient food source – a hay crop was grown on part of the land, referred to as the hayfield; (3) removi...Denaxe Ltd v Cooper & anr [2023] WTLR 1279
Winter 2023 #193The appellant, formerly known as Blackpool Football Club (Properties) Ltd, was the majority shareholder in Blackpool Football Club Ltd (BFCL) (which operated the football club business) and was the owner of other assets including the football stadium at which games were played (the footballing assets). A dispute broke out between the appellant and its owner and controller, Mr Oyston, on the one hand and VB Football Assets (VB), which was a minority shareholder in BFCL, on the other hand. This led to an unfair prejudice petition being issued and VB succeeded in obtaining a buy-out order f...
Harvey & anr v Van Hoorn [2023] WTLR 1323
Winter 2023 #193This was a claim for an order under the Variation of Trusts Act 1958, or alternatively a direction that the trustees of a settlement be at liberty to implement an arrangement involving the release and reimposition of certain powers. The claimants were the only trustees of the trust, and were also, respectively, the widow of the settlor, who had become the trust’s life tenant upon his death, and the settlor’s only child, who was also one of the objects of a discretionary power of appointment under the trust. They were concerned about the capital gains tax consequences that would ensue if ...
Hughes v Pritchard & ors [2023] WTLR 1335
Winter 2023 #193Evan Hughes (the deceased) left wills dated 7 August 2005 (the 2005 will) and 7 July 2016 (the 2016 will). Much of the deceased’s estate consisted of agricultural land, including 58 acres of farmland known as Yr Efail.
The deceased was survived by two children, Gareth and Carys, having been pre-deceased by a third, Elfed. Elfed was survived by a widow, Gwen, and three children: Stephen, Siôn and Geraint.
Under the 2016 will, but not the 2005 will, Yr Efail was gifted to Gareth.
Gareth claimed to propound the 2016 will in solemn form. Gwen and Stephen counterclaimed t...
Jones & ors v Jones [2023] WTLR 1371
Winter 2023 #193The deceased died on 16 September 2021 leaving what purported to be a will dated 4 July 2021. It was signed by her and witnessed by a neighbour and a chartered accountant. It appointed the defendant, her daughter, as executrix and beneficiary of her entire estate.
The deceased’s other surviving children (the first claimant and the second claimant) and the children of a deceased child of the deceased (Vicky) (the third to sixth claimants) challenged the will on the grounds of lack of testamentary capacity, lack of knowledge and approval, and undue influence by the defendant over th...
Laird v Simcock & ors [2023] WTLR 1393
Winter 2023 #193The deed was intended to appoint a life interest in the assets not attracting IHT relief to the deceased’s widow, the first defendant. The interest so appointed would then qualify for the spousal exemption. Due to the wording of the deed however it appointed an interest in all of the trust assets, not merely those which did not qualify for IHT relief.
The claim was issued for rectification of the deed. The claim was adjourned with directions at the first hearing, the Master expressing the view that the evidence was insufficient to sustain the rectification claim. Further evidence ...