There is a discretionary power available to the courts under this section which allows a trustee's personal liability for a breach of trust to be lifted if it appears to the court that the trustee "has acted honestly and reasonably, and ought fairly to be excused for the breach of trust and for omitting to obtain the directions of the court in the matter in which he committed such breach". The trustee could be relieved from personal liability "either wholly or partly".[1]
In a 2012 ruling concerned with liability for payment of a mortgage sum fraudulently requested by imposters, the High Court assessed the requirements of honesty and reasonableness separately and found that the solicitors who had wrongly handed over payment had acted "honestly" but not "reasonably". In the Court of Appeal, this ruling was overturned and the circumstances allowed the solicitors to be "fairly excused" their breach of trust.[2]
Repealed enactments
Section 70 of the act repealed 15 enactments, listed in the second schedule to the act.[3]
Sections one hundred and thirty-five to one hundred and thirty-eight, so far as they relate to lunatic trustees, except where the Judge or Master in Lunacy is given concurrent jurisdiction with the High Court.
Subsection (4) of section eighty-three, section eighty-eight; Part IV., except subsection (7) of section one hundred and ten, subsection (3) of section one hundred and thirteen, and subsection (5) of section one hundred and twenty-three.
Section 65 of the act was repealed by section 10(2) of, and part I of schedule 3 to, the Criminal Law Act 1967, which came into force on 1 January 1968.[4]
The Trustee Act 2000 (c. 29), which came into force on 1 February 2001, repealed part I of the act and replaced the investment powers of trustees with a broader statutory duty of care and a general power of investment.[5]
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