Re Barlow's Will Trusts
A gift to friends to buy paintings at a reduced price was valid, because it was a series of individual gifts, and it was enough that a person could be shown to be a friend.
Facts
Helen Barlow left a valuable collection of paintings by will, and directed her executor to allow any members of her family and any friends of hers who might wish to do so to buy any of the paintings at a low price fixed by a valuation made many years before. The question was whether the gift to friends was void for uncertainty, since the word friend has no fixed meaning.
Legal principle
Browne-Wilkinson J held that the gift was valid. He said that the direction did not create a discretionary trust, but a series of individual gifts to people who could show that they were friends of the testatrix. For such gifts, it is not necessary to be able to say of everyone whether they are in or out of the class, as long as it can be said of any person who claims that he is within it. He suggested guidance, such as that the relationship must have been long standing, social rather than business, and that they must have met frequently when circumstances allowed.
Related cases on certainty of objects and discretionary trusts
- Re Baden's Deed Trusts (No 2) [1973] Ch 9
- Breakspear v Ackland [2008] EWHC 220 (Ch), [2009] Ch 32
- Re Gulbenkian's Settlements [1970] AC 508
- Re Hay's Settlement Trusts [1982] 1 WLR 202
- IRC v Broadway Cottages Trust [1955] Ch 20
- Re Londonderry's Settlement [1965] Ch 918
- Re Manisty's Settlement [1974] Ch 17
- McPhail v Doulton [1971] AC 424
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