All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing able students with a stand-alone resource. This chapter shows how a variation of trust occurs in cases where all the beneficiaries of a trust are of full age, under no disability, and in agreement to terminate the trust and resettle the trust property on a new trust, varying the original trust. In cases of necessity, the court has an exceptional inherent jurisdiction to vary a trust. The Variation of Trusts Act 1958 enables the court to consent to the variation of a trust on behalf of certain actual or potential beneficiaries who are unable to consent to the variation. The Act enables the revocation of an existing trust and establishment of a new trust, but only where the new trust can be regarded in substance as similar to the old trust.
Chapter
15. Variation of Trusts
Paul S Davies and Graham Virgo
Chapter
6. Revocation
This chapter considers the concept of revocation. Revocation is literally the action of ‘calling back’, in the sense of rescinding or annulling. It is a fundamental characteristic of wills that they are revocable wholly or partially at any time before a testator’s death. The chapter also considers topics related to revocation: alterations, revival, and republication. A will may be revoked by four different methods: by marriage or civil partnership; by another will or codicil; by a duly executed writing; and by destruction. Revocation by marriage is governed by s. 18 of the Wills Act 1837. A testamentary gift to a spouse will fail if the marriage/civil partnership subsequently ends in divorce/dissolution or nullity, but strictly this is not a method of revocation.
