Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Related legal acts

Key definition

Disputes definition

What does Disputes mean? In legal practice, disputes are disagreements giving rise to potential legal rights and remedies between parties, addressed through dispute resolution including litigation, arbitration and ADR such as mediation and negotiation. The term is descriptive rather than a defined statutory concept; the substantive rights and procedures arise from statute and common law. Typical features include identification of the cause of action, applicable limitation periods, choice of jurisdiction and forum, compliance with pre-action protocols or pre-action correspondence, disclosure/discovery, evidence, settlement, costs and enforcement. Usage is broadly consistent across England & Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland, though civil procedure differs: CPR in England...

Beneficiaries’ rights to trust information and trustees’ disclosure duties: notification, accounts, letters of wishes, legal advice, Schmidt v Rosewood, data protection SARs, refusals and litigation-related disclosure

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Practice notes

A clear line should be drawn between disclosure by trustees under trust law, arising from beneficiaries’ rights to receive information, and ‘non-party’ disclosure by trustees in litigation, whether given voluntarily or compelled by a court order. Trustees owe beneficiaries a duty to account, as stated by Millet LJ in Armitage v Nurse, and so should act co‑operatively when dealing with proper information requests. Properly exercising disclosure forms part of the trustees’ fiduciary obligations. When asked to disclose, trustees ought to consider whether there is any sound reason to refuse. Beneficiaries do not have a proprietary entitlement to inspect trust documents; rather, they have the right to require disclosure of documents and information rooted in the trustees’ duty of accountability. The decision in Dawson Damer v Taylor Wessing LLP may allow a beneficiary to obtain material not available under trust law if the request can be presented as a request for their personal data. In Dawson Damer, the request relied on the now‑repealed Data Protection Act 1998, which has been replaced by the Data Protection Act 2018. See: Subject access request to trust documents below.

Duty to notify beneficiaries of their

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Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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