Settlors and Beneficiaries

The meeting with Chris and Margaret was good. We discussed Chris’s idea to solve the storage issue (an outhouse) and agreed that he should cost it out. We also had the draft Trust constitution from the solicitor and looked at it together. Afterwards we telephoned to set a day to meet with the solicitor and finalise the constitution. Then the way will be clear to submit the documents to the bank and open a bank account in the name of the Dave Pearson Trust. It would be nice if this could be done by the date of the auction.

One of the items for discussion was how Chris would word the trust documents. He is the ‘Settlor’, the person who currently owns the artwork. He will name other potential ‘Beneficiaries’ and needs to agree on this before the final document is drawn up. Chris has a sister, Florence, who has lived most of her life apart from the family. The circumstances around the illness of her parents finally brought Florence back to the family, and she met Chris not long before Dave’s death after a long, long separation. I remember both Chris and Florence when I was a student and occasionally did their baby-sitting. The long period of separation must have been painful for everyone concerned, and Chris is now clearly anxious to develop a close and warm relationship with the sister he has rediscovered after such a long parting.