This blog regularly highlights the critical importance of reading the ‘Read the Deed’ mantra before taking any step of substance in relation to a trust.
Last week, I had another example of this in relation to a purported change of trusteeship.
The documentation in relation to changing the trustee of the family trust appeared on its face to be relatively standard.
The difficulty was that the particular trust deed had some quite bespoke provisions concerning how the trustee could be changed, and unfortunately, those provisions had not been followed.
The further difficulty with this particular case was that no one had discovered this error until some years later (when the bank was refusing to complete on a property transaction).
We are now working with the bank to try and resolve the issue that simply would not have arisen if the time had been taken to have read the trust deed in the first place.
** For the trainspotters, ‘Take it Easy’ is a song by The Eagles from 1972. See a live rendition from 1977.