Representation of Ocorian Private Trustees (Jersey) Limited and Ocorian Limited re T Trusts: [2024] JRC 186

The Trustees (the Trustees) of four Jersey law governed trusts (the Trusts) applied to the Court under Article 51 of the Trusts (Jersey) Law 1984 for a blessing of their decision to distribute the assets of the Trusts to the four children of the Settlor of the Trusts (the Decision). The Trustees considered the Decision to be momentous necessitating the Court’s blessing.

The Decision was initially rejected by the Court in a hearing in June 2023. A further plan was provided and heard in November 2023 with judgment pronounced in January 2024 (the January Judgment). The January Judgment noted that the distribution plan was much better than the plan presented to the Court in June 2023. In the January Judgment, the Court approved the Trustee’s plan to sell the property if Sibling D failed to purchase it by February 2024.

The present hearing addressed certain contentious issues concerning certain loans (the Loan Issue) and the sale of a property (the Property Issue).

The Loan Issue concerned certain loans by two of the siblings (Siblings C and D) of the Settlor in respect of a joint venture to purchase a stud farm. The Trustees initially proposed that an equal division of the loans between Siblings C and D was reasonable.

In respect of the Property Issue, Sibling D had not purchased the property by February 2024 and eviction proceedings had been initiated. The Trustees reiterated that the property needed to be sold to pay off certain loans.

The Court concluded that what the Trustees proposed with the Loan Issue and Property Issue were decisions that a reasonable trustee could have made in the circumstances and accordingly blessed those decisions. In respect of the Property Issue, the Court noted that Sibling D’s procrastination was delaying the implementation of the Decision.

Full Judgement Here