Mr A has received a substantial reward of £27m from the NHS following a brain damage suffered during birth.
The Court of Protection are “insistent” on paying the award to the family as Deputies, rather than place it into a Personal Injury Trust.
There was legal assistance with the claim.
Do the Deputies have the power to place the funds into trust? Or do they need to go back to the CoP to arrange this?
The Deputies must obtain court approval to place the funds into a PI Trust. Failure to do so would risk censure from the CoP, and most likely would be regarded as a breach of the authority and hence revokable. Presumably the Court Order appointing the Deputy has been read in full.
That said, there is nothing to prevent an application to the Court for transfer to a PI Trust, and for what it’s worth the damages receive the same special treatment if held by the Deputies, as they would if held in a PI Trust.
I am a little surprised that the COP is wanting family members as deputies. Usually for that sum one would see an independent professional deputy. The usual procedure would be that a deputy would be appointed during the course of the litigation to receive interim payments of damages. On final resolution the High Court would direct transfer to the COP. I am not sure why one would want a personal injury trust in this situation.
Whilst Haroon is correct in what he says, I think the CoP is now very reluctant to grant permission for a PI Trust unless there are exceedingly good reasons to remove the damages awarded from its jurisdiction.
I agree with Graeme’s view that the COP are reluctant to grant permission. However, there are strong arguments for and against PI Trust and each matter should be considered on it’s merits. The COP has been known to change it’s stance on certain matters and with the size of the damages award, it may well be that there is affordability to challenge the matter, particularly if it is felt to be in the best interests of the client. (A side effect potentially being that the overworked court has one less matter that it needs to involve itself with.)