The Law Commission of England and Wales has announced a public consultation on its 14th Programme of Law Reform and has published a scoping document providing background on the programme and ideas for potential projects.
STEP is hosting a joint webinar with the Law Commission on 19 May to discuss the proposals in further detail. The major areas of focus are:
The Wills Project, paused in 2017, will review the Wills Act 1837 to give it a radical overhaul, including possible reform of key principles of the legislation, modernising the language and reforming any ambiguities. Many consider that reform in this area is long overdue and there is a need to review testamentary capacity, statutory wills, supported will-making, the formalities, the protection of vulnerable testators, and of course digital aspects such as electronic signatures and execution. We understand that the Commission hopes to pick this project up again by early 2022.
The Trust Project will be an initial scoping study investigating problems with English trust law, with a view to modernising and updating it in line with international standards. It will explore the current limitations with trust law and examine how it could be updated to facilitate more competitive trust services in a global market.
The project will review alternative trust and trust-like structures available in other jurisdictions, for example, Jersey’s Foundation Law and Cayman’s Star Trusts, and will consider whether similar structures could be implemented. The project will also review the law governing certain categories of statutory trust, and identify technical trust law issues that may need general updating and reform.
The scoping document acknowledges that English trust law has not been comprehensively reviewed since 1925 and notes that Singapore and New Zealand have updated their laws and been creative in maintaining a healthy trust market, whilst other countries have implemented new trust and trust-like structures to meet demand.
The Commission has clarified that the trust project will not make recommendations regarding the taxation of trusts, for which HM Treasury has policy responsibility, and the project will therefore exclude the law of mistake which has significant tax consequences.
STEP members and non-members are welcome to join our free webinar on Wednesday 19 May at 4.30pm (BST) entitled ‘Modernising trust law for a global Britain’ in which we will explore the Law Commission’s 14th Programme of Law Reform with a specialist Law Commission and STEP panel.
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