Law of Trusts Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Law of Trusts - Essay Example Since the repeal of the Preamble, the law has progressed on the back of judicial decisions arrived at in the light of the Preamble. The traditional definition of such trusts came from Commissioners for Special Purposes of Income Tax v Pemsel (1891), which divided charitable trusts into four categories: trusts for 'Relief of Poverty', for 'Advancement of Education', for 'Advancement of Religion' and, trusts for 'Purposes Beneficial to the Community'. Trusts for the advancement of education, includes conventional education and training. Thus trusts for schools, colleges, universities and other institutions of learning are valid. But this head extends to any mode of acquiring useful knowledge from literary learning to scientific researches etc. In the case of Re Shaw (1957) it was held that a gift by George Bernard Shaw in his will for research of a forty letter alphabet and translation of one of his plays into it was not charitable. It is arguable whether the same result would have been reached under the principle laid down in the later case of Re Hopkins (1965). It concerned a gift to Francis Bacon Society to be used to find manuscripts proving that the plays of Shakespeare were written by Francis Bacon. The gift was held charitable. The result of research must also enter the public ... Therefore research carried out by companies and kept for their exclusive commercial use is not charitable. Although far from the concerns of the Preamble, trusts for animal welfare such as that of the preservation of wildlife through animal sanctuaries have been held to be charitable, this has been due to a change in the general approach that was adopted by the courts in the mid-nineteenth century, where charities of this kind were likely to be held to be a failure because of various reasons. Trusts for animals would be charitable if they 'tend to promote and encourage kindness towards animals and to stimulate humane and generous sentiments in man towards lower animals': Re Wedgewood. However in Re Grove Grady (1929), the Court of Appeal held that a gift for an animal sanctuary which specifically excluded humans so that the animals would not be molested was not charitable, for such a gift produced no public benefit. If it is found that the charitable purpose would be a failure because the means for its implementation as chosen by the testator are either impractical or impossible to carry out then the doctrine of cy-pres or ss13 and 14 of the Charities Act 1993, can be applied so that it would not fail. The cy-pres doctrine allows the courts to direct that the trust property be applied to a purpose as close as possible to the one intended by the settler. Cy-pres can save charitable trusts from failure at the outset or from subsequent failure when carrying out the purpose becomes impossible or impractical. The doctrine only applies to a purpose which already counts as a charitable purpose. In order for the courts to re-direct trust money intended for charitable purposes, the courts must find that the donor