Jessica Henson
Jessica is a private client partner at Payne Hicks Beach specialising in risks and disputes in relation to trusts and estates.
Jessica has accrued extensive trust and estates litigation experience both in England and offshore.
Jessica draws on her wealth of litigation experience to inform asset protection and estate planning strategies designed to avoid disputes in the future. She is frequently asked to advise on the establishment of trusts, pre and post nuptial agreements and Wills where there are particular risks or asset protection concerns.
Jessica is the co-founder ConTrA (the Contentious Trusts Association) which runs informative seminars and conferences for over 400 members both in the UK and offshore.
Practice Area
Panel
- Contributing Author
Qualified Year
- 2011
Membership
- STEP
- ACTAPs
- ConTrA
Education
- Cambridge University
- BPP
1 Contributions by Jessica Henson
PRACTICE NOTES
Trusts: construction, rectification and mistake—principles, Hastings-Bass limits, rescission of voluntary dispositions, and procedure under CPR Part 8 and AJA 1985 s 48 (England and Wales)
The courts of equity have a well-recognised jurisdiction to grant relief against the consequences of mistakes and ambiguities in a variety of contexts relating to trusts.
Such matters seldom involve adversarial contention. Ordinarily, petitions for this kind of relief amount to ‘friendly litigation’, with participants collaborating to resolve the difficulty through the court process. A shadow claim in professional negligence can sit in the background, quite often against an adviser whose guidance, or omission of it, produced the error. In those circumstances, professional indemnity insurers often meet the cost of the application, providing the necessary funding. When uncertainty or an error emerges, the initial task is to identify the character of the problem so as to determine the available remedy in principle. Does it concern the wording of an instrument, or the legal effect of that instrument or a broader transaction undertaken? If the wording is in issue, the court will look to construction (for ambiguity or obscurity) or rectification (where the written terms mis-state the agreement). If the complaint is about the effect of the instrument or deal, the enquiry becomes whether that instrument or transaction can be set...
Private Client
If you expected to see yourself on this page, click here.
