The trustees claimed an extra £25,000 in fees for exceptional and unforeseen work involved in a central London property redevelopment scheme, and similar work surrounding the Capital Transfer Tax 1975 introduction and also to revise the fee scale for the future.

Fox LJ, overturning Walton J, confirmed that the court had the inherent jurisdiction, not only to authorise payment of trustees where none had been made by the settlor, but also to increase it.

He said,[1] the court has an inherent jurisdiction to authorise the payment of remuneration of trustees and that that jurisdiction extends to increasing the remuneration authorised by the trust instrument.

In exercising that jurisdiction the court has to balance two influences which are to some extent in conflict.

If therefore the court concludes, having regard to the nature of the trust, the experience and skill of a particular trustee and to the amounts which he seeks to charge when compared with what other trustees might require to be paid for their services and to all the other circumstances of the case, that it would be in the interests of the beneficiaries to increase the remuneration, then the court may properly do so.Brightman LJ and Cumming-Bruce LJ concurred.