The Will creates a Life Interest Trust for the benefit of the surviving spouse (the Life Tenant).
The Trustees are directed to pay the income of the Trust Fund to the spouse for the Trust Period.
The Trust Period is defined as “the period between my death and the death of the Life Tenant”
The clause then goes on to say that subject to the spouse’s right to receive the income during the Trust Period the Trustees shall hold the capital and income of the Trust Fund as follows:
As to a 50% share to my son XXXX absolutely and if XXXX shall fail to obtain a vested interest leaving issue who survive me and reach the age of 18 years then such issue shall take by substitution …
Sadly the son passed away before his mother without leaving a will. He does have children who were alive when his father (the testator/settlor) died.
Did the son get a vested interest merely by being alive at the time of his father’s death so that his reversionary interest passes under the Intestacy Rules?
If this is the case then how should that interest be valued with a view to distributing the estate under the Intestacy Rules?
Subject to the “armchair rule” I believe that the son will have obtained a vested interest on surviving his father as there is nothing to say that the gift to him required him to surviving his mother. However, I would be interested to receive other peoples views.