Shares and similar held in trust to be divided between my brother and myself on the death of their owner.?

Question

Their is no problem with the situation itself, the problem is the lack of a Trustee to administer the situation. The trust deed was drawn up by a Solicitor and is simple enough. The equities are held by a Bank who require instructions from the Trustee. Both solicitor and his practice no longer exist and the Law Society can find no trace of either. Some years have elapsed so this not too suprising, however, we now have deadlock! The Bank is correct; their is no dispute over what what should now happen; but we collectively need an aparantly defunct Trustee. What is the proceedure in these cases?

Answer 1

I assume this is to be decided under English law. It seems to me the instructions are in the trust itself. If the settlor (the person who set the trust up and transferred property to it) was the trustee and is required to issue an instruction to the bank after his death, you should make a public stink about the intelligence of the solicitor who drew it up, And if there is no provision for replacing the trustee, that is a second serious indication of the solicitor's deficiency in practice (in the USA, we would call that malpractice).

If you are both the only beneficiaries and the trust instrument clearly indicates you are to share the trust corpus equally on the death of the settlor, and the death of the settlor is without question, the bank should release the assets to the two of you. The bank certainly has no right to the assets.

You need a new solicitor or perhaps a barrister to pursue the bank.

Answer 2

The solution would be first, go and see a trusts specialist, normally where there is no trustees, (there should be a minimum of two normally to prevent fraud etc) The court upon application from the beneficiaries can be appointed as a trustee, or appoint some one suitable, the reasonable charge is allowable under the trustees of land and appointment of trustees act 1996. I have minor experience, but i think this is what happens, the trustee act 2000 may also be of some use.

The bank has to follow because if something goes wrong, they can be sued for knowingly assisting a breach of trust, which is why trustees are needed.

Answer 3

The deed was a lot like the solicitor as you say too simple for any ones good.
The bank are dragging their heels and should of found a "rule" to follow.
You may be being to nice to the bank who are taking liberties or are to inexperienced for this work.
Go higher in the bank.
good luck
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