Question
You have recently qualified as a solicitor. Your good friend Holly has accumulated significant wealth over her working life and wants to set up a
You have recently qualified as a solicitor. Your good friend Holly has accumulated significant wealth over her working life and wants to set up a number of trusts to benefit others. Holly arranges to meet you for lunch. It transpires she has drafted several provisions and wants you to comment on each of them and identify any areas that may be legally problematic. Holly also mentions that although she is not retaining you as a lawyer, she would like to offer some remuneration for your efforts. Holly explains that she expects to receive a modest compensation award from a personal injury matter (around $2000) she was involved in last year. Holly writes the following on a napkin 'In anticipation of, and with thanks for all your help, I hereby assign the compensation I receive from my personal injury litigation to you' (she includes your full name) and signs the napkin. She then hands you a document containing the following provisions: (a) I appoint Sayed & Jones Solicitors as my trustees. (b) My 500,000 shares in EmCo Pty Ltd are to be sold, and the proceeds to be divided equally between such of the issue of my four grandparents (excluding myself) who were born before 1 January 2024. (c) $200,000 to my trustees on trust to apply the annual net income of the fund, in their absolute discretion, to any law student enrolled in Equity and Trust at UTS Law School who has achieved excellent grades and has an urgent need for financial aid. (d) I leave my Sidney Nolan paintings to my trustees, the best ones to be held on trust for my grandchildren Edward and Edwina, to be given to them when they reach 18 years of age. The others are to be sold and the proceeds given to any benevolent purpose chosen by my trustees. (e) $500,000 is to be used to fund a Professorial Chair in Equity and Trusts at the UTS Law School. On further inquiry, you ascertain that the EmCoPty Ltd share are worth more than $2,000,000, and Holly owns 6 (six) Sidney Nolan paintings. Write to Holly explaining any issues that might arise from the above provisions, giving reasons and any changes you might make to address these issues. In your response, explain, giving reasons, whether or you can enforce the proposed assignment to you of the compensation payment.
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