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Easter Term [2013] UKSC 26 On appeal from: [2011] EWCA Civ 197
JUDGMENT
Futter and another (Appellants) v The
Commissioners for Her Majesty's Revenue and
Customs (Respondent)
Pitt and another (Appellants) v The Commissioners
for Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs
(Respondent)
before
Lord Neuberger, President
Lord Walker
Lady Hale
Lord Mance
Lord Clarke
Lord Sumption
Lord Carnwath
JUDGMENT GIVEN ON
9 May 2013
Heard on 12, 13 and 14 March 2013
Appellant (Futter) Respondent Robert Ham QC Philip Jones QC Richard Wilson Ruth Jordan Jennifer Seaman (Instructed by Withers (Instructed by HMRC LLP) Solicitors Office)
Appellant (Pitt) Respondent Christopher Nugee QC Philip Jones QC William Henderson Ruth Jordan (Instructed by Bolitho (Instructed by HMRC Way and Belcher Frost) Solicitors Office)
the only way in which the situation may be described) the possibility is raised that the development of the rule may have been diverted from its true course.”
These appeals are the first cases on the Hastings- Bass rule in which the Commissioners of HM Revenue and Customs (“the Revenue”, so as to include their predecessors, the Commissioners of Inland Revenue) have been joined as parties in the proceedings. It is the Revenue that has taken on the task of challenging, if not the existence, at least the limits of the Hastings-Bass rule. It is no coincidence that the judgment of the Court of Appeal in these two appeals (which were heard together in that court also) is the first fully considered judgment above first-instance level, and the first to come on further appeal to the Supreme Court ( Mettoy was not cited to the Court of Appeal in Stannard v Fisons Pension Trust Ltd [1991] Pen LR 225, discussed in para 34 below).
- Rescission of a voluntary disposition on the ground of mistake is, by contrast, a topic on which there is a good deal of authority, including a decision of the House of Lords, Ogilvie v Allen (1899) 15 TLR 294. But some of the authorities are quite old, and others are debatable. There has been much discussion of the distinction drawn by Millett J in Gibbon v Mitchell [1990] 1 WLR 1304, 1309, between a relevant mistake having to be “as to the effect of the transaction itself and not merely as to its consequences or the advantages to be gained by entering into it.” So here too review by the Supreme Court is appropriate.
- This court has therefore had to consider a large volume of case-law, culminating in the judgment of Lloyd LJ in the Court of Appeal in these appeals: [2011] EWCA Civ 197, [2012] Ch 132. That judgment, described by Longmore LJ, para 227, as “remarkable”, and by Mummery LJ, para 230, as a “very fine comprehensive and clarifying judgment”, runs to 226 paragraphs. I share their admiration, and I agree with Lloyd LJ’s main conclusions as to the scope of the Hastings-Bass rule, and the outcome of the appeals on that issue. But I will say at once that I take a different view of the disposal of the appeal in Pitt on the mistake issue.
- Before any detailed consideration of the case-law it may be helpful to identify, in general terms, some of the principal topics in the appeals. It has often been said (for instance, by Norris J in Futter , para 21) that the rule in Hastings- Bass is not founded in the law of mistake, and in his judgment Lloyd LJ dealt with them as almost completely separate topics. They do cover different areas, in that the Hastings-Bass rule is restricted to decisions by trustees and other fiduciaries, and does not necessarily require the decision-maker to be under a positive misapprehension: mere absence of thought may be sufficient. The court’s wider jurisdiction to rescind a transaction on the ground of mistake is not limited to
transactions entered into by fiduciaries, and does generally require there to have been something that can be identified as an operative mistake. The significance of fault in the error or inadvertence is a further point of distinction.
- Nevertheless there is a degree of overlap between the two principles in their practical application. In some of the first-instance cases on the Hastings-Bass rule judges have drawn attention, with evident surprise, to the absence of any alternative claim for relief by way of rectification or rescission on the ground of mistake. In some of the cases (such as Abacus Trust Co (Isle of Man) v Barr [2003] EWHC 114 (Ch), [2003] Ch 409, the facts of which are summarized at paras 36 and 37 below) rescission on the ground of mistake would seem to have been the natural remedy for the trustees to seek. There must be some suspicion that reliance on the Hastings-Bass rule has come to be seen as something of a soft option, or at any rate as a safer option, at a time when it was supposed, wrongly, that the application of the rule did not require the granting of a remedy which was discretionary in the sense that it might be withheld because some equitable defence was established.
- The way in which the law seemed to be developing, especially in cases concerned with unsuccessful tax-planning arrangements, led one legal scholar (Professor Charles Mitchell, Reining in the rule in In Re Hastings-Bass , (2006) 122 LQR 35, 41-42) to ask:
“Why should a beneficiary be placed in a stronger position than the outright legal owner of property if he wishes to unwind a transaction to which he has given his consent, but which turns out to have unforeseen tax disadvantages?”
Professor Mitchell went on to comment, presciently:
“The courts will have to look elsewhere for the means of reining in the rule in Re Hastings-Bass , most probably to the equitable bars to unwinding a transaction that would come into play if it were decisively recognised that the rule renders transactions voidable rather than void.”
This court now has the opportunity of confirming the Court of Appeal’s recognition of that essential point.
THE HASTINGS-BASS RULE
Chadwick LJ, in Edge v Pensions Ombudsman [2000] Ch 602, 628-629. It was also noted by Lord Woolf MR in Equitable Life Assurance Society v Hyman [2002] 1 AC 408, para 20. The analogy cannot however be pressed too far. Indeed it was expressly disapproved by the Court of Appeal in these appeals (Lloyd LJ at para 77 and Mummery LJ at para 235). In Abacus Trust Co (Isle of Man) v Barr [2003] Ch 409, para 29 Lightman J identified three important differences as the discretionary nature of relief on judicial review, a different approach to nullity, and strict time limits.
- The second strand is that a voluntary disposition (typically a gift, outright or in settlement) may be set aside on the ground of mistake. As already noted, this branch of equitable jurisdiction is distinct from the Hastings-Bass rule, but similar issues arise as to the nature and gravity of the relevant error or inadvertence, and in practice they sometimes overlap. The mistake jurisdiction was considered as a separate issue in paras 164 to 220 of Lloyd LJ’s judgment. He identified the correct test as derived in part from the judgment of Lindley LJ in Ogilvie v Littleboy (1897) 13 TLR 399, 400 (approved by the House of Lords as Ogilvie v Allen (1899) 15 TLR 294), a case which “emerged from the shadows to be cited to the court” after a century of obscurity. He also considered recent decisions including Gibbon v Mitchell [1990] 1 WLR 1304 and In re Griffiths decd [2008] EWHC 118 (Ch), [2009] Ch 162.
- The third strand of legal doctrine, and the most abstruse one, is concerned with the partial validity of an instrument which cannot be entirely valid because it infringes some general rule of law. It is an issue which arises, often under the rubric of severance, in many different areas of law. One example is contract law, especially in the context of illegal restraints on trade (see the judgment of Jonathan Sumption QC in Marshall v NM Financial Management Ltd [1995] 1 WLR 1461, upheld by the Court of Appeal [1997] 1 WLR 1527). Another example is bye- laws held to be partly ultra vires (see the speech of Lord Bridge in Director of Public Prosecutions v Hutchinson [1990] 2 AC 783).
- In the field of trust law the most common invalidating factor, until the Perpetuities and Accumulations Act 1964, was the unreformed rule against perpetuities, or remoteness of vesting. This applied relentlessly both to dispositions of property made by settlors or testators of property at their free disposal, and to dispositions made in the exercise of special (that is, restricted) powers of appointment over settled property. Special powers of appointment might be exercisable either by individual donees (for instance, by a parent with a life interest in favour of children with interests in expectancy) or by the trustees as a body. But in either case the power could be exercised only within the limits, and for the purposes, marked out by the donor of the power. And in either case the interests appointed had to conform to the rule against perpetuities as it applied to lives in
being at the time of the creation of the power (that is, the date of the original settlement, or the date of the testator’s death).
- These matters were once familiar (indeed, elementary) to almost all chancery practitioners. Law and practice at the chancery bar have moved on. The rule against perpetuities has lost its terrors since the Perpetuities and Accumulations Act 1964 (which was almost completely non-retrospective) gradually came to apply to more and more trusts, followed by the Perpetuities and Accumulations Act 2009. Family trusts are now a shrinking enclave designated as “private client” work, and pensions trusts, burdened by increasingly complex regulatory statutes, are another enclave reserved for pensions specialists. But in order to investigate the origins of the disputed rule in In re Hastings-Bass it is necessary to revisit, without much nostalgia, this area of trust law as it was about 50 years ago. There was a body of fairly arid case law, now almost entirely obsolete, about the validity of interests in settled property which were “ulterior to” but not “dependent on” antecedent interests which infringed the rule against perpetuities. In re Hubbard’s Will Trusts [1963] Ch 275 and In re Buckton’s Settlement Trusts [1964] Ch 497 are examples from just before the enactment of the reforming statute. In re Abrahams’ Will Trusts [1969] 1 Ch 463 and In re Hastings-Bass, decd [1975] Ch 42, discussed below, can be seen as a final chapter in that case law.
- There is one further background matter to be noted. Under traditional family settlements, when the modern type of discretionary settlement was still fairly rare, the most common dispositive power exercisable by trustees was the power of advancement. This is a power to accelerate the interest of a beneficiary interested in capital, exercisable with the consent of any beneficiary with a prior interest (typically a parent with a prior life interest). Such powers were so much common form that section 32 of the Trustee Act 1925 provided a default power, which could be excluded or (as often happened) extended by the trust instrument. The power was typically exercisable by a payment or transfer “to or for the advancement or benefit” of the beneficiary.
- In In re Pilkington’s Will Trusts [1964] AC 612 the House of Lords, differing from the judge on one point and from the Court of Appeal on another, held that a power in those terms could (in principle, and apart from the rule against perpetuities) be exercised for the benefit of a minor beneficiary (the testator’s nephew’s daughter, who was only two years old when the proceedings started in
- by a transfer of up to half of her expectant share, with her father’s consent, to the trustees of a new settlement under which she would attain a vested interest in capital at 30. This would lawfully avoid estate duty on her father’s death if he lived for a further five years. But the House of Lords also held that the new settlement must, for the purposes of the rule against perpetuities, be treated as if it were an appointment made under a special power conferred by the testator’s will.
The result was that for the period covered by the trustees’ resolutions, the minor beneficiaries got their income, but the Revenue got their surtax on that income.
- Abrahams and Hastings-Bass were both cases about plans to save estate duty by terminating a life interest and passing on settled property to the next generation. The plans (carried out in 1957 and 1958 respectively) were on the same general lines as that in Pilkington , the first-instance decision in which ([1959] Ch 699, Danckwerts J) had provided an encouraging precedent (the Revenue were joined in the proceedings and given leave to appeal in 1960). The Revenue were also parties to the Abrahams and Hastings-Bass cases, and in each case (ironically, in view of later developments, as Norris J pointed out) it was the Revenue which argued for the complete invalidation of the resettlement, partly through the direct operation of the rule against perpetuities, and partly (as an argument against severance) because “the effect of the operation of the rule is wholly to alter the character of the settlement”, as Cross J put it in Abrahams at p
- Cross J rejected an argument approximating an advancement by way of resettlement to the exercise of a power of appointment. Although they were treated in the same way for perpetuity purposes, in his view the similarity ended there (p. 485 D-E):
“The interests given to separate objects of an ordinary special power are separate interests, but all the interests created in Carole’s fund were intended as part and parcel of a single benefit to her.”
Cross J held, therefore, that there was no valid exercise of the power of advancement.
- In Hastings-Bass the Court of Appeal, in a single judgment delivered by Buckley LJ, took a different view of a similar duty-saving transaction. The true ratio of the decision has been much debated, both in forensic argument and by legal scholars. It has been considered twice by Lloyd LJ, first in Sieff v Fox [2005] EWHC 1312 (Ch), [2005] 1 WLR 3811 paras 43 and 44 (his last first-instance case before his promotion to the Court of Appeal) and again, at much greater length, in his judgment in this case (paras 46 to 67).
- It is perhaps simplest to start with what Hastings-Bass did not decide. It was not about mistake. Although one case on mistake ( Wollaston v King (1869) LR 8 Eq 165) was cited, it was not referred to in the judgment. It would not have been enough for the Revenue to establish that the exercise of the trustees’ power might have been voidable at the instance of a beneficiary. The Revenue could succeed only by establishing that there had been no valid advancement at all. Nor did the decision turn on any inquiry into what was actually in the minds of the
trustees in exercising the power of advancement. There seems to have been no evidence of this, and in Buckley LJ’s discussion at pp 39-41 (extensively quoted by Lloyd LJ at paras 53-56) the recurrent theme is what the trustees, as reasonable trustees, “should” or “would” have considered or intended. The third negative point to make is that Hastings-Bass did not overrule Abrahams. It was distinguished on the basis that in Abrahams the attenuated residue of the sub- settlement not struck down by the rule against perpetuities may not have been for the benefit of the beneficiary in question. But Buckley LJ did differ from Cross J’s view that the benefit conferred by an advance by way of resettlement was of “a monolithic character”, preferring the view that it was “a bundle of benefits of different characters.” If and so far as it is an issue of severability, it is obviously easier to sever part of a bundle than part of a monolith.
- Buckley LJ’s own statement of the principle of the decision in Hastings- Bass seems to be the passage at p 41 which has often been cited in later cases:
“To sum up the preceding observations, in our judgment, where by the terms of a trust (as under section 32) a trustee is given a discretion as to some matter under which he acts in good faith, the court should not interfere with his action notwithstanding that it does not have the full effect which he intended, unless (1) what he has achieved is unauthorised by the power conferred upon him, or (2) it is clear that he would not have acted as he did (a) had he not taken into account considerations which he should not have taken into account, or (b) had he not failed to take into account considerations which he ought to have taken into account.”
Lloyd LJ did not accept that as the true ratio. He thought that the Court of Appeal had already decided the case on the ground that the advancement, so far as not struck down by the rule against perpetuities, must stand unless it could not, in that attenuated form, reasonably be regarded as beneficial to the advancee. That is an objective test which does not call for an inquiry into the actual states of mind of the trustees.
- Lloyd LJ expanded this line of thought in para 66:
“If the problem to be resolved is what is the effect on an operation such as an advancement of the failure of some of the intended provisions, because of external factors such as perpetuity, it is not useful to ask what the trustees would have thought and done if they had known about the problem. The answer to that question is almost certainly that they would have done something different, which
remained exercisable by the trustees. These questions arose because the trustees had admittedly not considered, or been advised about, the significance of rule 13.
- In response to another question raised by the originating summons, Warner J held that the power of augmentation was, even when exercisable by the employer, a fiduciary power. On that basis it was not clear that the trustees, if they had fully considered the matter, would have objected to the change effected by rule 13 ([1990] 1WLR 1587, 1628A-1630A). But by then Warner J had upheld (in a passage from pp1621G to 1626A) the existence of “a principle which may be labelled ‘the rule in Hastings-Bass ’”. He took Buckley LJ’s statement of principle in that case (set out at para 24 above) and reformulated it in positive terms, and so far as relevant to the facts of the case, as follows (p 1621H):
“where a trustee acts under a discretion given to him by the terms of the trust, the court will interfere with his action if it is clear that he would not have acted as he did had he not failed to take into account considerations which he ought to have taken into account.”
- Warner J rejected the submissions of Mr Edward Nugee QC, recorded at pp 1622G to 1623G, that the principle, although existent, was of very narrow scope, and that the cases of Vestey, Abrahams and Hastings-Bass (together with Pilkington , where there was a proposal for a resettlement rather than a completed transaction):
“.. .were about the consequences of what [Mr Nugee] referred to as an ‘excessive execution’ of a power, ie the purported exercise of a power in a way that the law rendered partially ineffective.”
Warner J dismissed this argument at p1624B-C:
“If, as I believe, the reason for the application of the principle is the failure by the trustees to take into account considerations that they ought to have taken into account, it cannot matter whether that failure is due to their having overlooked (or to their legal advisers having overlooked) some relevant rule of law or limit on their discretion, or is due to some other cause.”
- Warner J also dismissed what he called Mr Nugee’s “all or nothing” argument (pp 1624H-1625A). In some cases the court would have to declare void the whole of some purported exercise of discretion by trustees. But in other cases (for instance where the trustees would have decided, had they thought about it
properly, to omit some particular provision from a deed) the appropriate course would be to declare that provision alone to be void.
- At p 1626D Warner J referred to “the all important third question: what would the trustees have done if they had considered the matters that they failed to consider?” His meticulous review of the oral and documentary evidence, including the cross-examination of Mr Lillyman (who was at all material times closely involved as the employer’s company secretary and a director of the corporate trustee) shows that he was concerned to establish, so far as he could, what these particular trustees (and not some hypothetical reasonable trustees) would have done. His approach was subjective, not objective.
- I respectfully agree with Lloyd LJ’s view that the basis on which Mettoy was decided cannot be found in the reasoning which led to the decision in Hastings-Bass. It can claim to be an application of Buckley LJ’s summary statement of principle, but only if that statement is taken out of context and in isolation from the earlier part of the judgment. If the principle applied by Warner J merits a name at all, it should be called the rule in Mettoy. But the rule as formulated by Warner J has given rise to many difficulties, both in principle and in practice.
From Mettoy to Sieff
- Mettoy was not much considered by the court during the 1990s. It was cited but not referred to in the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Edge v Pensions Ombudsman [2000] Ch 602. That decision, on an appeal by the Pensions Ombudsman from the judgment of Sir Richard Scott V-C [1998] Ch 512, was largely concerned with the jurisdiction of the Pensions Ombudsman under Part X of the Pension Schemes Act 1993. The general tenor of the Court of Appeal’s judgment is that neither the Ombudsman nor the court has power to intervene in decisions made by trustees unless they have acted in breach of duty. That can be seen as putting down a marker that Lloyd LJ has since recognised.
- In Stannard v Fisons Pension Trusts Ltd [1991] Pen LR 225, in which Hastings-Bass but not Mettoy was cited, the Court of Appeal modified Buckley LJ’s formulation, without any full discussion of the point, by putting the test in terms of what the trustees might, rather than would, have done if fully informed. The facts were that trustees had taken a decision about transfer values on the basis of an out of date valuation of the pension fund. The Court of Appeal’s modification of the test seems questionable since the legal significance of the error must have depended on the scale of the change in market value rather than on the precise nature of the trustees’ hypothetical second thoughts.
“But in considering the ambit of the rule it is necessary to bear in mind that it is only one of the protections afforded to beneficiaries in respect of the due administration of the trust by the trustees. It is also important to have in mind that equity does not afford a trustee or a beneficiary a free pass to rescind a decision which subsequently proves unpalatable or unfortunate and substitute another. Relief is only available if the necessary conditions for its grant are satisfied.”
He referred to the authorities already discussed and observed that he did not need to resolve the issue posed by Stannard , since (para 20) “clearly the trustee would not have appointed 60% of the trust fund if it had known of the settlor’s true wishes.” He then addressed four issues: (1) whether there had to be a fundamental mistake; (2) whether the rule applied if there was any relevant mistake or ignorance on the part of the trustee, regardless of how it arose (and in particular, regardless of any breach of duty on the part of the trustee); (3) following from the last point, whether the rule applied on the facts of the case before him; and (4) whether, if the rule applied, the appointment was void or voidable.
- On the first issue Lightman J decided, correctly in my view, that a fundamental mistake was not necessary. A fundamental, or at least serious mistake may be necessary for rescission on the ground of mistake (that is relevant to the second ground of appeal in Pitt ), but for the rule which Abacus was invoking (para 21):
“the rule does not require that the relevant consideration unconsidered by the trustee should make a fundamental difference between the facts as perceived by the trustee and the facts as they should have been perceived. All that is required in this regard is that the unconsidered relevant considerations would or might have affected the trustees’ decision, and in a case such as the present that the trustee would or might have made a different appointment or no appointment at all.”
But as his decision on the second point shows, it must be sufficiently serious as to amount to a breach of duty.
- On the second issue, Lightman J held that a breach of duty on the part of the trustee is essential to the application of the rule (para 23):
“What has to be established is that the trustee in making his decision has, in the language of Warner J in Mettoy Pension Trustees Ltd v
Evans [1990] 1 WLR 1587, 1625, failed to consider what he was under a duty to consider. If the trustee has in accordance with his duty identified the relevant considerations and used all proper care and diligence in obtaining the relevant information and advice relating to those considerations, the trustee can be in no breach of duty and its decision cannot be impugned merely because in fact that information turns out to be partial or incorrect.”
- That is in my view a correct statement of the law, and an important step towards correcting the tendency of some of the earlier first-instance decisions. If in exercising a fiduciary power trustees have been given, and have acted on, information or advice from an apparently trustworthy source, and what the trustees purport to do is within the scope of their power, the only direct remedy available (either to the trustees themselves, or to a disadvantaged beneficiary) must be based on mistake (there may be an indirect remedy in the form of a claim against one or more advisers for damages for breach of professional duties of care). This serves to emphasise that the so-called rule in Hastings-Bass was not in play in that case, or in Abrahams. In those two cases the trustees were not at fault in failing to foresee the House of Lords’ decision in Pilkington several years later. But they purported to exercise their power of advancement in a way that was beyond the scope of that power, since it was contrary to the general law (that is the rule against perpetuities as clarified in Pilkington ). The issue (resolved differently in Abrahams and Hastings-Bass ) was whether the parts of the resettlement not void for perpetuity were sufficient to amount to a proper exercise of the power of advancement. In Mettoy and Barr , by contrast, it was never in doubt that the relevant deed fell within the scope of the trustees’ power. This point is clearly made in paras 92 and 93 of Lloyd LJ’s judgment in the Court of Appeal.
- On the third issue Lightman J held that Abacus was in breach of duty, mainly because it had to take responsibility for Mr Ward-Thompson, who (para
- “has declined to give evidence and answer the case made or suggest a different scenario”. This part of the judgment turns on the particular facts of the case, but they are typical of many such cases, and I shall return to them in discussing the difficulties that still beset this area of the law.
- On the fourth issue Lightman J held that in cases where the rule applies (as opposed to cases of equitable non est factum such as Turner v Turner [1984] Ch
- it makes the trustees’ disposition voidable, not void. The Court of Appeal agreed with his analysis, and so do I. The rule, properly understood, depends on breach of duty in the performance of something that is within the scope of the trustees’ powers, not in the trustees doing something that they had no power to do at all. Beneficiaries may lose their right to complain of a breach of trust by complicity, by laches or acquiescence or in other ways. Lightman J adjourned the
settlements had “stockpiled” gains – that is, gains realised while the trust was not resident, and not yet distributed to the beneficiaries or brought in to charge for capital gains tax purposes.
- On the advice of the solicitors, the new, resident trustees on 31 March 2008 distributed the whole capital of the No 3 settlement to Mr Futter, in exercise of a power of enlargement, and on 3 April 2008 distributed £36,000 from the No 5 settlement to Mr Futter’s three children in equal shares, in exercise of a power of advancement. Each of these transactions was squarely within the scope of the relevant power. Mr Futter and Mr Cutbill understood (correctly) that the “stockpiled” gains would in consequence be attributed to Mr Futter and his children as if they were gains realised by those beneficiaries themselves. They also believed (incorrectly) that these attributed gains would be absorbed by allowable losses which they had realised so that no eventual tax liability would arise. This overlooked the effect of section 2(4) of TCGA as amended (the relevant amendment, for those interested in the fine detail, was that made by Schedule 21, para 2 of the Finance Act 1998, and not the further amendment made by Schedule 2, para 24 of the Finance Act 2008, which applied only from 5 April 2008). The result was a large capital gains tax liability for Mr Futter and a modest one for his children.
- Mr Futter and Mr Cutbill applied, as trustees of the two settlements, to have the deed of enlargement and the deeds of advancement declared void. The first four defendants, the beneficiaries, did not appear. The fifth defendant, the Revenue, resisted the application.
- Norris J began his judgment in spirited fashion, as already noted (para 3 above). However he went on to state that it was not an occasion for a first-instance judge to reconsider a developed rule. He took the judgment of Lloyd LJ in Sieff v Fox as the leading authority on the rule, as had Sir Andrew Park in Smithson v Hamilton [2008] 1 WLR 1453, para 52, and as had Mr Robert Englehart QC in Pitt v Holt [2010] 1 WLR 1199, para 18.
- The Revenue’s submissions were similar to those advanced in Pitt (para 57 below), apart from the receivership point. As it happens the first-instance judgment in Pitt was given on the first day of the first-instance hearing in Futter , so that there was no real opportunity for revision of the Revenue’s case. As recorded in the judgment of Norris J the Revenue had three main lines of argument. The first was that the decision of the trustees “was not in any meaningful sense different from what they intended (apart from the tax consequences)”. This argument echoed the distinction drawn by Millett J in Gibbon v Mitchell [1990] 1 WLR 1304, 1309-1310, between “effect” and “consequences”. Norris J rejected this argument on the ground that mistake was a different ground for relief, and that
under the Hastings-Bass rule tax consequences are rightly regarded as something that trustees must take into account in exercising their discretions. The Revenue’s second line of argument focused on the significance of the trustees’ error. It was to some extent a variation on the first argument, and it was rejected on similar grounds. The Revenue’s third submission (not pressed) was that so far from considering capital gains tax, the trustees had it in the forefront of their minds: “the problem was that the advice was wrong” (para 28). But wrong advice on tax consequences could, the judge said, lead to a perfectly orthodox application of the rule.
- Norris J held that the deeds were void, not voidable. He referred briefly (para 32) to the judgment of Lightman J in Barr , but noted that his reasoning (based on the trustees being at fault) was not accepted by Lloyd LJ in Sieff v Fox. Nevertheless Norris J considered (para 33) that the rigours of the “void” analysis could be mitigated by the application of equitable principles.
Pitt v Holt: The facts and the first-instance decision
- The facts relevant to the Pitt appeal are set out at length in the judgment of Lloyd LJ at paras 147 to 159, to which reference may be made for further detail. The claim was made by the personal representatives of Mr Derek Pitt, who died in 2007 aged 74. In 1990 he had suffered very serious head injuries in a road traffic accident, resulting in his mental incapacity. His wife, Mrs Patricia Pitt, was appointed as his receiver under the Mental Health Act 1983, and on his death she became one of his personal representatives, and the only beneficiary interested in his estate. Mr Pitt’s claim for damages for his injuries was compromised by a structured settlement, approved by the court, in the sum of £1.2m. Mrs Pitt’s solicitors sought advice from Frenkel Topping, a firm of financial advisers said to have specialist experience of structured settlements. They advised that the damages should be settled in a discretionary settlement, and this was done, with the authority of the Court of Protection, in 1994. The trust was referred to as the Derek Pitt Special Needs Trust (“the SNT”).
- Frenkel Topping gave their advice in a written report to Mrs Pitt (as receiver) which was made available to the Official Solicitor, who represented her husband in the application to the Court of Protection. The report referred to various advantages which the SNT was expected to secure, and it mentioned income tax and capital gains tax in its illustrative forecasts. But the report made no reference whatsoever to inheritance tax. The SNT could have been established without any immediate inheritance tax liability if (i) it had been an interest in possession trust or (ii) it had been a discretionary trust complying with section 89 of the Inheritance Tax Act 1984. In order to comply with section 89 its terms should have provided that at least half of the settled property applied during Mr Pitt’s lifetime was
