KKL Executor & Trustee Company Ltd v Harrison [2020] EWCOP 25

Competing applications for the appointment of a deputy to manage the property and affairs of the P. The application was granted to Ms Harrison.

KKL is a trust corporation working closely with a charity called JNF Charitable Trust.  KKL provides services focussed on will writing, executorship and lasting powers of attorney as well as a pastoral service which includes home visits and help with making personal arrangements for care either directly or by referral to its network of contacts. KKL had known the P for some years and the P had made three successive Wills appointing KKL as executors. The other applicant, Ms Harrison, is a professional deputy approached by the P’s social worker under an approved scheme used by Leeds City Council for referrals required on behalf of vulnerable people for legal advice or deputyship. Both applicants objected to the other being appointed as deputy for the P.

The court concluded that Ms Harrison was the more suitable person to be appointed as deputy for the following reasons:

• KKL’s geographic distance;
• KKL’s inexperience as deputies compared with Ms Harrison;
• The potential conflict of interest between the P and KKL’s parent company JNF UK with which KKL is intimately concerned;
• The possibility that KKL’s involvement with the writing of the P’s latest Will and their acting as her executor was in breach of the Fundraisers Code or, even if this is incorrect, the need to investigate this point with a possible view to a complaint to the regulator and/or an application for a statutory Will;
• The possible conflict of interest between the P and Ms Harrison is manageable under a well-established process and is a regular and accepted part of Court of Protection proceedings.

Read the full text of the judgment on Bailii