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Finding a valid trust when no property was specified: Ong v Ping

Oliver Hilton acted on behalf of various parties who, in the context of bankruptcy proceedings, sought to set aside a number of judgments of the High Court which were alleged to have been obtained by fraud. The issues included whether a valid Jersey law trust was created in respect of a house in circumstances where the executed trust instrument had not specified any trust fund and, if so, whether its existence was deliberately concealed from the court. Oliver succeeded at first instance (see [2015] EWHC 1742 (Morgan J)).

The trust issue was upheld on appeal (Leveson, Underhill LLJ & Sir Colin Rimer), the Court of Appeal considering that, as a matter of construction, having regard to the whole body of antecedent correspondence, an effective trust of the house had been declared by conduct when the trust instrument was executed.

The reported judgment is available here: Ong v Ping [2017] EWCA Civ 2069.