By Darryl Browne -
Key decisions
- ADT v LTD [2014] QSC 169
- Carolyn Margaret Hickin v Robyn Patricia Carroll (No 2) [2014] NSWSC 1059
- Mullins-Trnovsky v Adams [2014] SASC 116
- FHR European Ventures LLP v Cedar Capital Partners LLC [2014] UKSC 45
- White v Willis [2014] NSWSC 1160; Re Edwards; State Trustees Ltd v Edwards [2014] VSC 392
- Thorn as Executor of the estate of McAuley v Boyd [2014] NSWSC 1159
Statutory will cases
ADT v LTD [2014] QSC 169 has added family law proceeding as a reason for a court to decline a proposed “statutory will”. (In Hausfield v Hausfield [2012] NSWSC 989 the court was not prepared to approve a will designed to defeat a beneficiary’s creditors.)
In ADT, the husband of an incapable person sought approval of a codicil removing the estranged wife of the incapable person’s son as a beneficiary. Moreover, the codicil proposed a discretionary testamentary trust instead of a gift to the son. The son’s estranged wife was not a possible beneficiary of the trust. The court considered that the clear impetus for the codicil was the breakdown of the marriage. It saw the discretionary trust as an attempt to place beyond any property settlement proceedings in the Family Court the assets that were to be gifted to the son absolutely.
