Sarah Aughwane
Senior associate
Sarah is a senior associate in the trust, estate and inheritance disputes team.
She advises on all types of domestic and international probate disputes including issues relating to the validity of wills and trusts and claims under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975.
She also specialises in on and offshore trust litigation including claims for removal of protectors or trustees, access to trust information, Mistake, Variation and directions applications. She has experience on cases in jurisdictions including the Jersey, Guernsey, Switzerland, Bermuda, BVI, Cayman, the Isle of Man and Nevis.
Together with other members of the team Sarah also advises on professional negligence actions in the context of trusts and estates.
Track record
Admissions
Publications
Talks
Sarah and Paul Hewitt advised the nominated representative of the former employees of Zaha Hadid Limited in Schumacher v Clarke and others [2020] in which the executors and trustees of Dame Zaha Hadid’s estate sought the Court’s blessing of a decision to pass significant assets to an Employee Benefit Trust. The Court accepted submissions made on behalf of the former employees and other representative parties that the decision should not be blessed. Click here to read the Judgment.
Sarah and Paul Hewitt represent Mrs Cowan in her claim for reasonable financial provision from the estate of her late husband. In July 2019 the Court of Appeal unanimously gave her permission to bring her claim notwithstanding it having been issued out of time. Here is a link to the Court of Appeal Judgment and to our article. Trial is due at the end of July 2020.
Sarah and Dawn Goodman for the successful beneficiaries in The Matter of the A Trust [2012] JRC 169A, where the Royal Court of Jersey made new law on the scope of the duties of trust protectors and the grounds on which they may be removed from office. The Royal Court found that, as with trustees, the correct test for removal of a protector arises from Letterstedt v Broers. Due not only to the protector’s misunderstanding his duties to his beneficiaries but also his failure to keep a watchful eye on the trustee’s management of the trusts, the Royal Court suspended his powers and removed him from office.
England and Wales, 2012
‘Fault Lines – Kennedy v Kennedy [2015] expands the horizons of the doctrine of mistake’, Trust and Estates - May 2015, o-author
T’he Protector - Who holds the gun?’, STEP journal - October 2013, co-author
‘The Protector’s Republic’, Trust and Estates - June 2013, co-author
Pernicious Protector, Dangerous Peer - June 2013
Powerholders in Trusts: the Trustee - Geneva and Zurich April 2017
ACTAPS – Trustees’ duty to account - 2017
Educación
Idiomas
- English