One person’s treasure may be another’s junk. The High Court was asked to amend terms of a charitable trust tasked with an obligation to store and maintain what turned out to be primarily household junk.
In 2001, Ron and Joan Gillatt established a charitable trust naming as beneficiaries local charities plus a model railway club and a cat protection organisation, all based in Christchurch.
Ten years later, the trust deed was amended to have the Trust take possession on their deaths all ‘books, magazines, papers, paintings, video tapes, philatelic items and DVDs’ that they owned. These items were to be preserved, with the paintings gifted to a publicly owned gallery.
The High Court was told estate solicitors were shocked to find on the 2024 death of widowed Mr Gillatt that most of these items were no more than junk of no enduring importance.
His stamp collection was valued at some $3000; the 73 pieces of artwork at no more than $20,000. Art experts advised none of the artwork was suitable for inclusion in any New Zealand public collection.
A requirement to use trust funds to store and maintain items of personal property ran the risk of disqualifying the trust’s charitable status, and with it, tax benefits that follow.
To save the Trust’s charitable status, the High Court approved amendments to the trust deed allowing trustees to dispose of all the unwanted personal property, with any proceeds of sale to be added to the trust fund where it may be used to benefit the Trust’s named charities.
The current size of this trust fund was not disclosed.
re Ron and Joan Gillatt Charitable Trust – High Court (13.11.24)
25.032