New Zealand Case Law: Decisions & Judgments | LexChat

New Zealand Case Law

Construction of trust deeds
  • 2 Jun 2020

    EDGE v BOURKE [2020] NZHC 1185

    Citation
    [2020] 3 NZLR 522
    Court
    High Court

    Clause 2 is an orthodox per stirpes direction: 'according to the stocks and not the number of individuals' gives the term its ordinary meaning, which includes that grandchildren do not take in competition with a living parent. There is no explicit language in clause 2 displacing that element, and the settlor's memoranda of wishes corroborate the preference for children over grandchildren; therefore the trust fund is to be divided equally between the settlor's children to the exclusion of grandchildren while those children are alive.