White (As Executor And Trustee of the Will of Joseph Robson Deceased) v Matthys & Ors

A testamentary gift to a registered political party may constitute a donation under the Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act 2000, including where the subject matter is a chose in action representing the right to have an estate administered. A party accepts such a donation when it positively assumes ownership of the relevant rights, even if no estate distribution has yet been made. Acceptance presupposes receipt, and receipt occurs no later than such acceptance. Where the donor was impermissible, the party cannot enforce rights whose enforcement would give effect to the prohibited donation. An assignee acquires no better rights, and the estate should instead be distributed according to the applicable intestacy entitlement.

The claimant, executor and trustee of Joseph Robson’s will, sought directions under CPR r. 64.2(a) concerning the distribution of the estate. The will left the residuary estate outside Spain to the British National Party. After the deceased’s death, BNP bequest trustees executed a deed of variation transferring the intended gift to trustees of a charitable settlement.

The deceased had lived in Spain and was found not to have been registered in an electoral register during the five years before his death. The issues were whether the testamentary gift was a donation received and accepted by the BNP contrary to section 54 of the Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act 2000, and what consequences followed.

1. The gift was a prohibited donation. The deceased was not a permissible donor under section 54(2)(a) and (4). The residuary gift was a bequest and therefore a gift of property within section 50. It included the chose in action held by a residuary legatee: the composite right to have the estate administered and the residue paid.
2. The Act was construed strictly. Because Part IV contains penal provisions, clear words were required before a person could be penalised. That principle did not justify excluding a chose in action from the deliberately broad definition of property.
3. Receipt and acceptance. There could be no acceptance without receipt. By executing the deed of variation, the BNP’s bequest trustees exercised the BNP’s rights as beneficiary and unequivocally assumed ownership of them before transferring them to the settlement trustees. The donation was therefore received, at the latest, when it was accepted. It was unnecessary to decide whether receipt occurred earlier.
4. Consequences. The consequences of breach were not confined to possible forfeiture under section 58. The settlement trustees acquired no better rights than the BNP possessed. The BNP could not enforce the right to have the estate administered in a way that gave effect to a donation prohibited by section 54. Section 61 reinforced that conclusion because giving effect to the gift could facilitate an impermissible donation.
5. The claimant was therefore directed to distribute the residuary estate to the deceased’s sons, as beneficiaries on intestacy, rather than to the BNP trustees or settlement trustees.