Make No Mistake

It is now a little over 11 years since the UK Supreme Court (the Supreme Court) handed down its decision in the conjoined appeals in Pitt v Holt and Futter v Futter.¹ This article looks at the current state of play in the law and practice in Guernsey and Jersey in the areas of 'mistake' and Hastings-Bass applications.

For the purposes of the use of the terms in this article (and by way of broad reminder), the doctrine of mistake has typically been applied by the courts to set aside transfers of property into trust made on a mistaken understanding as to the effect of the transfer. Whereas, the rule in Hastings-Bass gave the court discretion to set aside an exercise of a power if the trustee failed to take into account relevant considerations that it ought to have when exercising the power or if the trustee took into account considerations that should have been disregarded.