Where there's a will, Jersey is part of the UK...

Wednesday 05 January 2022

It's a common bugbear among islanders that Jersey is often wrongly labelled as part of the United Kingdom...but London judges have decided to let the geographical faux-pas slide to resolve a row over a will.

The UK Court of Appeal recently ruled on a case where a Russia-based widow, Olga Rossiter, disputed that money held in a Jersey bank should be included in her late husband’s will, because it only referred to ‘UK assets’.

That will distributed the money to the late Nicholas Rossiter’s two children but this was contested by the widow, who argued that Jersey was outside of the UK, therefore the will did not cover assets held there.

The assumed consequence was, therefore, that she should inherit them.

Pictured: The Court concluded that Mr Rossiter’s "intention was beyond doubt" when writing his will.

However, Appeal Court judges Lord Justice Lewison, Lord Justice Green and Lord Justice Nugee rejected that argument.

Lord Justice Lewison decided that the will did deal with the Jersey assets, and it should be rectified to reflect that.

The court stated that, for the purposes of domestic legislation, Jersey was not part of the United Kingdom; however, it did find cases where the definition had encompassed the Channel Islands, such as Stoneham v Ocean Railway and General Accident Insurance Co (1887)  and Royal Society v Robinson (2015).

Above all, however, the Appeal judges looked to the intention of Mr Rossiter, ruling that he had wished that his will cover the Jersey assets, even if it did not say that in black and white.

Lord Justice Lewison said in a judgment published this week: “The testator’s [Mr Rossiter’s] intention was beyond doubt.

"In the draft that he had himself prepared, he said, on the one hand, that it was only to deal with his UK property but, on the other hand, he intended to make specific legacies of his Jersey assets. 

“The two were only rationally reconcilable on the basis that the testator intended ‘the UK’ to include Jersey.

“Accordingly, where the will used the abbreviation ‘UK’ it included Jersey. On that basis the alternative claim to rectify the will did not arise.”