Defunct church misses out on legacy
Pamela Schroder was a devotee and the only minister of the 'Church of the Good Shepherd’, which seems to have been a breakaway sect from the Roman Catholic Church.
She executed her will in 1975 when it was reasonably well attended but by the time she died in January 2008 the church had, to all intents and purposes, closed. The congregation did not meet after her death and without her the activities of the church ceased to exist.
Her estate of £548,000 was administered by her solicitor-executor, John Kings and named 'the Trustee of the Ancient Catholic Church known as the Church of the Good Shepherd' as the residuary legatee.
The gift failed and a partial intestacy arose because the provision was too dependent on a named institution remaining in existence. The gift which had been worded as 'for the general purposes of the church' could have been preserved if a general or paramount charitable intention had been found in the will and the work of the church had continued in some form or other.
For example, if there were other institutions holding doctrines close to those of the Church of the Good Shepherd, cy-près could have been applied, allowing the Court to amend the original terms of the will to allow causes near enough to those specified in Mrs Schroder's will to benefit.
Unfortunately, there was no evidence to prove this and the judge therefore concluded that the gift of residue was invalid. ‘It is always a great shame to see such gifts lost to charity and to see Mrs Schroder's wishes frustrated in this way’, commented Jonathan Burchfield, head of Stone King's legacy team, ‘However, the case illustrates the necessity to draft charitable gifts in wills with great care, especially when dealing with such a proposed gift to a non-mainstream charity’.
John Christopher Kings (for Pamela May Schroder) v (1) Dorothy Bultitude (2) Attorney General[2010] EWHC 1795 (Ch) 15 July 2010
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