Claire Henchley & Ors v Patricia Thompson CBE & Anor

In an account in common form, beneficiaries must identify specific inaccuracies in the account and provide the grounds and quantum of each objection. They cannot use the process to surcharge the account for losses allegedly caused by trustee neglect or omission.

Objections must comply with the court’s orders and CPR PD 40A. New points, company-level objections outside the scope of the account, and unsupported allegations may be excluded. Where a reconstructed account is based substantially on contemporaneous documents and professional work, the court may approve it despite evidential gaps if satisfied on the balance of probabilities that it is reliable.

The claim concerned the administration of the WCC Henchley Trust between 1972 and 1993. Following an earlier order for an account, the first defendant’s estate produced an Updated Account reconstructed from extensive documentary material.

The beneficiaries challenged the Updated Account through a Scott Schedule and later evidence. The court had to determine which objections were permitted, whether they complied with the applicable orders and CPR PD 40A, whether they were new, company-level or attempts to surcharge the account, and whether the Updated Account should be approved.

1. Outcome. The Updated Account was approved and settled. The balance of the claim was dismissed. Issues concerning any monetary liability, limitation, laches and the statutory relief under section 61 of the Trustee Act 1925 did not require determination.
2. The court has jurisdiction to examine and settle or approve a trustee’s accounts where beneficiaries will not do so, applying Chadwick v Heatley (1845) 2 Coll 137. The account is reviewed against the objections, after which it is approved or rejected.
3. The objections had to identify the relevant account entry, state how it was inaccurate, provide the grounds, and quantify the objection. Those requirements followed the orders made in the proceedings and paragraphs 3.1 and 3.2 of CPR PD 40A. None of the beneficiaries’ objections complied, apart from one objection which was separately rejected on its merits.
4. The account was in common form. The beneficiaries therefore had to falsify entries by showing that trust property had been wrongly applied. They could not surcharge the account by alleging that the trustees ought, through greater diligence, to have obtained more for the trust. The distinction drawn in Ultraframe v Fielding [2005] EWHC 1638 (Ch) was applied.
5. Objections concerning transactions undertaken at company level were outside the scope of the earlier order and had not been authorised. Later points were also prohibited as new objections under the order of 26 May 2023. Unsupported or unparticularised allegations could not fairly be adjudicated.
6. The Updated Account was prepared as well as possible in the circumstances. It relied extensively on contemporaneous documents, third-party records and professional accounting work, and had been exhaustively tested. Despite some gaps, the court was satisfied on the balance of probabilities that it should be approved.

First-instance decision. The judgment records an earlier account order by Chief Master Marsh in [2017] EWHC 225 (Ch), concerning the WCC Henchley Trust, followed by later procedural orders governing the Updated Account and objections.