Huw Lewis v Charles Tamplin
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | HHJ,Paul Matthews |
| Judgment Date | 16 April 2018 |
| Neutral Citation | [2018] EWHC 777 (Ch) |
| Court | Chancery Division |
| Docket Number | Case No: D31BS734 and D31BS468 |
| Date | 16 April 2018 |
[2018] EWHC 777 (Ch)
HHJ Paul Matthews
(sitting as a Judge of the High Court)
Case No: D31BS734 and D31BS468
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
BUSINESS AND PROPERTY COURTS IN BRISTOL
PROPERTY TRUSTS AND PROBATE LIST (ChD)
Bristol Civil Justice Centre
2 Redcliff Street, Bristol, BS1 6GR
William Moffett (instructed by Stone King LLP) for the Claimants
Guy Adams (instructed by RDP Solicitors) for the Defendants
Hearing dates: 9 February, 26 March 2018
Judgment Approved
Introduction
This is my judgment on two proceedings listed for hearing before the court. The first is an application for pre-action disclosure (“the Application”). It was begun by notice issued on 22 February 2017 at the County Court in Bath. It was supported by a witness statement of Sarah Eden dated the same day. A witness statement was made on behalf of the defendants, opposing it, by Michael Feakes on 16 May 2017. The Application was transferred to the High Court, Chancery Division, Bristol District Registry, by order of DJ Goddard of 23 May 2017. It now has the reference number D31BS468.
The second proceeding is a claim under Part 8 of the CPR (“the Claim”). The claimants, who are now accepted to be beneficiaries under a trust of land known as the Tamplin Trust, seek disclosure of documents and other information from the defendants, the trustees of the trust, on the basis of the obligation owed by trustees to beneficiaries to account to them for their stewardship. It was commenced by claim form issued on 22 November 2017 in the Bristol District Registry of the High Court, under reference number D31BS734. It was supported by a witness statement made by Simon Stone dated the same day and subsequently opposed by another witness statement of Michael Feakes, dated 15 December 2017. On 19 January 2018, Sarah Eden made a witness statement responding to this. In order to avoid constant repetition, I will use the terms claimant and defendant to include applicant and respondent, so as to cover both proceedings, unless otherwise stated.
At the two hearings before me William Moffett of counsel appeared for the claimants, and Guy Adams of counsel appeared for the defendants. The time estimate for the hearing of four hours (itself an increase on the time originally sought) proved at the original hearing on 9 February 2018 to be inadequate, and the matter was adjourned part-heard to 26 March 2018, when it was completed. I should say that Mr Adams had the lion's share of the time available. I am very grateful to counsel for their interesting and helpful submissions, on a matter of some practical importance, on which (in certain respects) there appears to be no existing authority.
The Tamplin Family and the Trust
Before going further, I should set out the necessary details of the Tamplin family in order to make this judgment intelligible. Ernest Tamplin and his wife Gladys had six children. They were Kathleen Bennett (who died in 1996), Charles Edward Tamplin (the first defendant in the Claim and first respondent to the Application), Robert Tamplin (who died in 2013), Maisie Tamplin (who died in 2009), Jane Wayne (the second defendant and second respondent) and Lorna Lewis (who died in 2008). Kathleen Bennett's husband Clifford had a sister called Bertha Standage, who has survived him. Charles Edward (known as Edward) Tamplin has two sons, Mark (the third defendant in the Claim) and Nicholas. Robert Tamplin had one daughter, Sadie Lougher (the third claimant in the Claim and third applicant in the Application). Jane Wayne has a daughter, Pippa Pountney. Lorna Lewis had two sons, Hugh (the first claimant and first applicant) and Rhys (the second claimant and second applicant).
The Tamplin Trust came into existence in the following way. Ernest and Gladys Tamplin bought Panteg Farm, Lisvane, Glamorgan, as beneficial joint tenants in 1951. When Ernest Tamplin died in 1985 his widow Gladys became the absolute beneficial owner of the land by right of survivorship. In February 1986 Gladys entered into a deed of variation and a deed of family arrangement with certain of her children as trustees. The effect of these instruments was that a half share in equity in the land was retained by Gladys and the other half was split between her six children. The terms of the deed of family arrangement provided that the beneficiaries under the trust ( ie Gladys and her children) should hold their shares
“for their own use and benefit absolutely and for them to devise bequeath or appoint during their lifetime or in their will as they individually shall decide”.
When Gladys died in August 1988, her beneficial half share passed to her 6 children equally by will. Accordingly, after her death, the trustees held the land on trust for all six children in equal shares. Subsequently, four of those children have died, leaving only Edward and Jane still alive. They are both trustees and beneficiaries. The interests of the deceased children passed by inheritance to those entitled on their deaths. (Any rights that Kathleen had in relation to the trust appear now to be vested in Bertha, though she has sadly lost capacity and is represented by Heather Mayo by lasting power of attorney.) An important feature of this case is that for a long time the trustees, advised by their solicitors, did not accept that the beneficial interests under the trust of the children of Gladys and Ernest could or should pass on their death by intestate succession. Instead, they persisted in the (unfortunately mistaken) view that the critical words of the deed of family arrangement (set out in paragraph 5 above) meant that the interests of the deceased children could not pass on intestacy, but only by will or deed of appointment. Accordingly, not having been willed to particular persons, those interests (they said) simply fell back into the trust fund and so increased the shares of the surviving siblings.
The three trustees of the Tamplin Trust are Edward Tamplin, his sister Jane Wayne, and his son Mark Tamplin. A procedural oddity is that Mark Tamplin appears as third defendant in the Claim, yet not as a party to the Application. He was appointed as a trustee on 28 November 2016, but it appears that the claimants were not aware of his appointment at the time that they issued the Application in February 2017. However, by the time that they came to issue the Claim, they had become aware (probably by way of a letter in May 2017) that he had become a trustee, and so they joined him too. Why it took so long for the existing trustees to communicate the fact of the appointment of a new trustee to the beneficiaries is not disclosed. But nothing appears to turn on this point, and I will not consider it further.
I should say that the disputes which have arisen in this case between the parties are not purely academic. As I have said, the land the subject of the trust amounts to some 12.3 acres at Panteg Farm in Glamorgan. It is potentially developable, and I have been told that as such it may have a value in excess of £10 million. Options have twice been granted by the trustees to potential developers, and may be granted a third time in the near future. But the evidence is that progress is slow: see Mr Feakes' first witness statement, [7]–[10], largely replicated in his second witness statement at the same paragraph numbers.
The claimants' status as beneficiaries
The claimants were foremost in propounding the view that the interests under the trust of children of Mr and Mrs Tamplin dying intestate were assets capable of devolution as part of the estates of those children. They made numerous requests to the trustees for information about the trust. The trustees refused such information, on the basis that the claimants were not beneficiaries. According to the witness statement of Simon Stone for the claimants dated 22 November 2017, [31]–[32], at the first hearing of the Application in the County Court at Bath in May 2017, DJ Goddard invited clarification of the trustees' position as to whether the claimants were beneficiaries. Following that judicial intervention, the trustees were persuaded to agree in writing that the claimants were indeed beneficiaries under the trust. Although, in his witness statement dated 15 December 2017, Michael Feakes for the defendants says that the claimants had not been “willing to accept the Trustees' assurances that they were beneficiaries”, he does not challenge the version of events set out in Mr Stone's witness statement, and indeed accepts that a deed was subsequently signed recording the status of the beneficiaries. Having considered the relevant documents, and for what it is worth, I respectfully agree with the interpretation placed upon the trust documents by the claimants.
What that means is that the trustees now hold the trust fund on trust for a total of nine beneficiaries in fixed but different shares. The defendant trustees between them hold some 44% (the first two defendants having 20% each, and the third 4%). The claimants having thus established their position as beneficiaries, the defendants had to decide what to do about the claimants' outstanding requests for information about the trust and its management. On 19 January 2018 the defendant's solicitors sent the claimants a letter enclosing a document of 12 pages, stated to be the “trust accounts”. Although the inception of the trust was in 1986, the document begins only in 1998. It sets out distributions to various beneficiaries and also payments of various fees charged by professional advisers. This document has come some ten months after the Application was launched and some two months after the Claim was issued. However, the claimants say this is...
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