Michael Tringham reports on families—& royalties
The same-sex partner of a flamboyant television presenter and hotelier who committed suicide in 2006 has failed to oust the latter’s executors. When he took his own life, Timothy Hadcock-May’s commercial property business was at the point of financial collapse. Since then his executors have been paying the estate’s debts by allowing the properties to be repossessed or sold off.
Now the Court of Appeal has refused Torquil Mackenzie-Buist leave to pursue further his application to remove the executors, suggesting that he settle with them before spending even more on legal costs. Sir Robin Jacob said: “The question should not come before this court, because it has no prospect of success”, adding it was “as plain as a pikestaff” that the Court of Appeal had no power to oust the executors.
Mackenzie-Buist claimed the executors had no right to dispose of the property portfolio because, having contributed most of the money, he held the properties as a joint tenant in equity—although they were registered in Hadcock-May’s name. The executors argued that Mackenzie-Buist was under a “fundamental misconception” about
