PT-2024-000315 - [2025] EWHC 3011 (Ch)

The applicable test

The jurisdiction to remove or replace trustees is highly fact-sensitive, and is likely to involve the court evaluating and weighing a wide range of factors, in respect of which the scope for reasonable disagreement as to the appropriate course of action is likely to be material. In that sense at least the jurisdiction is discretionary, albeit it is not a “freewheeling unfettered discretion to do whatever seems fair when it comes to trusts” (to use Lord Neuberger’s memorable phrase in Crociani v Crociani [2014] UKPC 40), but one which must be exercised by applying a well-established test.

The test applied by the court in exercising its jurisdiction is derived from the judgment of the Privy Council in Letterstedt v Broers (1884) 9 App Cas 371. In that case, trustees charged substantial commissions to the trust, which were subsequently disallowed. Those substantial overcharges contributed to a complete breakdown in relations between the trustee and the beneficiary. Without making any finding that the trustee had committed a breach of trust, the court removed the trustee from office. Lord Blackburn – giving the judgment of the Board – held that the court’s jurisdiction to remove and replace trustees “is merely ancillary to its principal duty, to see that the trusts are properly executed.” In exercising its jurisdiction, the court’s “main guide must be the welfare of the beneficiaries.”

These principles have been repeatedly approved and applied by the court in many subsequent cases, with minor nuances of language not altering in any way the substance of the applicable test. The applicable test is whether the removal or replacement of one or more of the trustees would be in the best interests of the beneficiaries of the trust as a whole, with a view to securing the proper administration of the trust in their favour.