TR v ST (Letters of Request)

Facts

The applicant wife (W) and the respondent husband (H) began living together in 2006, married in 2011 and separated in 2023. They have two children. The former matrimonial home, a property in the South West of England worth more than £400,000, is legally owned by a company which is in turn owned by a discretionary trust. H's late father settled the trust in 2008 in "X Country", a member state of the European Union, and the trust is governed by the law of that country. According to H and a letter from the trustees, H may live in the property rent-free, but neither party has a beneficial interest in it. After separation, W moved out at H's instigation into another trust-owned property under a tenancy. H told the court that the trust owns 48 mortgage-free rental properties in this country. In the financial remedy proceedings, both parties said in their Forms E that they had negligible resources. H described himself as a reversionary beneficiary, through a dormant company, and said that he had no trust documents. At the First Appointment, the District Judge ordered the parties to write jointly to the corporate trustees, a law firm in X Country, asking for specified trust documents. The trustees did not respond. On 30 April 2026, W applied for a letter of request, and the application was referred to the High Court. On 30 June 2026, the trustees replied that they would not disclose the documents without a lawful basis requiring them to do so, relying on a confidentiality clause and on the law of X Country.