LMS, Re (settlement of property into a trust) [2020] EWCOP 52

Application by the mother of the P to have the P's inheritance put into trust. The application was successful.

The P, aged 21, currently receives a means-tested benefit, Employment and Support Allowance. Her placement at a specialist residential college for young learning-disabled people is funded by the local authority and the residential component of that funding is also means-tested. She was left around £170,000 in her grandfather's will, subject to her attaining the age of 25. This application sought to place that sum of money into a disabled person's trust to be held by the P's parents for the benefit of the P.

The court concluded that the proposed deed should be authorised on the basis that it will better effect the P's grandfather's intention that his will would financially benefit the P. Although the Court of Protection does not have jurisdiction to determine whether the P will be entitled to means-tested benefits and funding, it is able to discern and record its own intention in authorising the deed on behalf of the P. The court was satisfied that the continuing eligibility of the P to means-tested benefits and funding was not the significant operative purpose of the proposed deed and that was not the court's motive in authorising the deed on behalf of the P. Rather it was intended to better effect the intention of the P's grandfather.

Read the full text of the judgment on Bailii