Joseph Goldsmith

“helpful, thorough and altogether excellent junior counsel”

"thoughtful, bright and very good in court"

"an 'outstanding up-and-comer"

Chambers UK : Traditional Chancery

Practice

Joseph Goldsmith has a general Chancery practice incorporating a wide range of contentious and non-contentious work, with particular emphasis on: trusts; wills, probate and the administration of estates; capital taxes and estate planning; pensions; proprietary estoppel; claims under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975; real property; landlord and tenant; and related professional negligence matters. He appears in the High Court, county courts and the Tax Chamber of the First-tier Tribunal.

Joseph has a particular interest in issues relating to incapacity and the Mental Capacity Act 2005. He appears regularly in the Court of Protection, where he is often instructed by the Official Solicitor.

He also practises in the field of ecclesiastical law and accepts instructions to appear in the consistory courts and other ecclesiastical tribunals.

Professional Reputation

He was recommended by Chambers UK 2007 and 2008 as an up-and-coming junior and is recommended as a leading junior in the traditional Chancery field by Chambers UK 2009 and 2010, in which he is described as a ‘helpful, thorough and altogether excellent junior counsel’.

Notable Cases

Joseph’s reported cases include:

• Hughes v. Woolworths Group Pension Trustee Ltd [2012] EWHC 905 (Ch.) (acted for trustee, and latterly the Pensions Protection Fund, in successfully resisting appeal from Pensions Ombudsman concerning allegations of maladministration)
• Re JDS [2012] EWHC 302 (COP), [2012] WTLR 475 (best-interests test applied in the context of an application for tax-planning gift out of a damages award)
• Prudential Staff Pensions Ltd v Prudential Assurance [2011] EWHC 960 (Ch.), [2011] PLR 239 (whether Prudential's decision to limit future pension increases for its former employees breached its implied obligation of good faith)
• Re St Columbia, Warcop [2011] Ecc. LJ 371 (application to Consistory Court for a faculty for the sale of a painting)
• Hapeshi v. Allnatt [2010] EWHC 392 (Ch.) [2010] WTLR 987 (common-intention constructive trusts)
• DCM (Optical Holdings) Ltd v. Commissioners for H.M. Revenue and Customs, [2010] UKFTT 393 (TC) [2010] SFTD 1204 (partial exemption special methods for VAT)
• Re St Peter’s, Draycott [2009] Fam. 93 (appeal to the Arches Court of Canterbury concerning an application for a faculty for the sale of a font)
• Re Horley Town Football Club [2006] EWHC 2386 (Ch.), [2006] WTLR 1817 (construction of a gift to an unincorporated association)
• Cadbury Schweppes plc v. Williams (H.M. Inspector of Taxes) [2006] EWCA Civ. 657, [2007] STC 106

Professional Memberships

Joseph is a member of the Chancery Bar Association, the Property Bar Association and the Ecclesiastical Law Society.

Publications and Lecturing

Joseph assists with Dymond’s Capital Taxes and has recently joined the writing team of Heywood and Massey: Court of Protection Practice. He has contributed to The Encyclopaedia of Forms and Precedents volume on wills and the administration of estates and to Tolley’s Finance and Law for the Older Client, in which he wrote a new chapter on lasting powers of attorney for personal welfare matters. He is also the author responsible for the chapters on the appointment of trustees and reverter-to-settlor trusts in Tolley’s Trust Drafting and Precedents. Joseph provides regular case summaries to Elderly Client Adviser (recently re-launched as Private Client Adviser) and has also written for the Trust Quarterly Review.

Joseph regularly lectures in the fields of mental capacity, wills, probate, trusts and taxation. The topics of his recent lectures have included the Court of Protection and the Perpetuities and Accumulations Act 2009.

Education

Joseph attended Hereford Cathedral School and was an exhibitioner of Brasenose College, Oxford, where he obtained a first-class degree in modern history. He obtained a postgraduate diploma in law with distinction from City University and achieved the highest mark in his year on the Bar Vocational Course. Joseph is a Lord Mansfield, Lord Bowen and Hardwicke Scholar of Lincoln’s Inn, which named him ‘Student of the Year’ upon his call to the Bar in 2003.