The assets of a UA include shares in a private limited company.
The rules of the UA specify that assets of the UA are to be held by no fewer than four Trustees.
However, the statutory register of members only has one Trustee named as the holder of the shares. As part of a recent review it’s been confirmed that the Trustee so named died a few years ago (and no-one updated the Company Secretary at the time to amend the statutory books).
What has happened to the legal title to those shares? Could it be legitimately argued that even though they are not named on the statutory register, legal title has passed to the surviving and current Trustees? Or, because the current Trustees aren’t named as joint shareholders on the statutory register, has legal title technically passed to the PRs of that deceased Trustee?
To confirm the Articles of Association do not contain any compulsory transfer provisions on death - they just incorporate Table A so the standard transmission wording applies.
Elizabeth Cotton
Capital Law