Hybrid | Retrospective Validation of Invalid Trustee Appointments

Panel:

• Sir Launcelot Henderson (Chair)
• Susannah Meadway (Ten Old Square) 
• Professor Charles Mitchell KC (Hon) (UCL).

About this event

What are the consequences where powers vested in trustees have been exercised by the wrong persons, whether by a body of persons who comprise invalidly appointed trustees, or who perhaps do not include all of the validly appointed trustees? Situations like this can arise in a myriad of circumstances including where persons have been appointed to act as trustees by the wrong person, or where trustees thought to have retired have not been validly discharged in accordance with the statutory provisions for discharge.

Case law confirms that such purported exercises of power are generally invalid, producing what are potentially very serious consequences. Since the trust will not have been duly administered some beneficiaries and third parties may have received property to which they were not entitled, while other beneficiaries may not have received property to which they were entitled. There may also be tax consequences. A tax relief or consequence which may have been available at the time when the relevant power was purportedly exercised may no longer be available, so that a later exercise by properly appointed trustees will not have the same anticipated effect. English case law seems to offer no solution of retrospective validation, and whilst the issue has been grappled with in offshore jurisdictions, no completely satisfactory solution has emerged there either.

Is statutory intervention needed to solve the legal problems in this area? Or should the purported and actual trustees, and their professional advisers, be required to pay compensation for losses, to the extent that other mechanisms, such as recoupment against beneficiaries or equitable proprietary claims, are inappropriate, unavailable or incomplete?

These issues are set out in a discussion document which will be pre-circulated to all registered attendees and which will form the basis of a group discussion led by a panel of experts.

This is a public event for which no charge is made but attendees are required to register.

The Trust Law Committee is a law reform body composed of trust law practitioners and academics. For information click on the relevant tab on the UCL Private Law Group webpage.

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