2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The case involves the sale of Tottenham House, principal asset of the Savernake Estate trust. Trustees sought court approval for the £11.25 million sale to Mr. A, amid opposition from beneficiary Lord Cardigan who argued against the sale price and marketing. The court approved the sale, validating the trustees' process and discretion.
Judgment
Everyone now agrees that Tottenham House, Savernake, Wiltshire (“Tottenham House”) which is the principal asset of the Savernake Estate, must be sold. It has been unoccupied since the 1990s, is decaying fast, and is on English Heritage’s ‘at risk’ register. It comprises two huge properties: the grade 1 listed house itself running to some 92,000 square feet, and the extremely dilapidated grade II* listed stable block amounting to some 24,000 square feet. The question in this case is simply whether the court should approve the proposed sale to the existing buyer.
The Savernake estate is the generic name for a trust established by a conveyance dated 29 th September 1951 (the “trust”) of which the claimants in this action are the present trustees (Mr Wilson Cotton and Mr John Moore, whom I shall call “Mr Cotton” and “Mr Moore”, together the “trustees”). Mr Cotton is a professional chartered accountant. In these proceedings (which I shall call the “approval action”), the trustees sought the approval of the court for their momentous decision to sell Tottenham House to an unnamed buyer (“Mr A”) under a conditional contract for sale dated 19 th August 2013 for £11.25 million (the “intended sale”).
The beneficiaries of the trust are the first defendant, the Earl of Cardigan (“Lord Cardigan”), and a settlement created on 27 th May 1987 (the “1987 settlement”), of whom Mr Cotton and the second defendant in the approval action, Mr Richard Ford, are the trustees (the “1987 trustees”), and under which the third defendant, Viscount Savernake, Lord Cardigan’s son, is the main beneficiary (“Lord Savernake”). The 1987 trustees support the trustees in seeking the approval of the intended sale. Lord Cardigan opposes the intended sale.
Two judgments are under appeal. In the first, Mr Nicholas Lavender QC, sitting as a deputy judge of the High Court, decided on 23 rd December 2013 to adjourn the trustees’ application for the approval of the intended sale to be heard with the trial of an earlier action numbered HC12A03886 (the “removal action”). In the removal action, Lord Cardigan as claimant seeks the removal of the trustees broadly on the grounds that they are unfit to act. Mr Lavender stated in his order that he would have ordered that the trustees be authorised to complete the intended sale, were it not for Lord Cardigan’s claims in the removal action. He also ordered that the court hearing the removal action would only reconsider whether the trustees should b