SIDEY ESTATE

Evening Star, Issue 25224, 11 July 1944, Page 4

SIDEY ESTATE

DECISION OF PRIVY COUNCIL DISTRIBUTION OF £BO,OOO "Head office, Dunedin, of the Per- ' petual Trustees Estate and Agency Company Ltd. has received advice that the Privy Council has allowed the appeal in the case concerning the distribution of the estate of the late John Sidtey, of Dunedin. The Perpetual Trustees were the appellants, and the defendants were Thomas Kay Stuart Sidey (first defendant) and Lorn a Murray Lewin (second defendant), representing herself and seven other residuary beneficiaries under the will. After giving certain .specific gifts and annuities the testator bequeathed—theincome for life of his residuary estate to his children, of whom there wero four- After the death of the last survivor of ■ such children, the whole of the residuary estate was devised and bequeathed "to and among my then surviving descendants in, such manner that the same shall be divisible per stirpes among the children, grandchildren, and remoter issue of such of my children as shall have left issue." the first defendant contended that the intended distribution was to ascertain the stocks or families according to the number of the testator's children leaving issue, and, this being throe, he should take one-third of 1 the residuary estate, the value of which was approximately £BO,OOO. The other defendants contended that the stocks or families were to be ascertained by taking the number if living descendants at the date of the death of the last surviving child leaving issue, in which cass the first defendant would take only one-ninth of the estate. The latter view was upheld by the Court of Appeal. This judgment has been reversed by the Privy Council and the appeal allowed.