To ask for help with law revision?

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Equity and trusts, the question is:

John, by way of his will, leaves:

1. £5000 to his son, Bob.
2. £5000 to his nephew, Jeff.
3. His house to his daughter, Jane.
4. The residue of his estate to his wife, Betty, for her to distribute to the law students of Manchester.

My study group and I have been working through this problem question for 3 days now. We've emailed our tutor but received nothing back and our exam is tomorrow

We're stuck on part 4. Is it a fixed trust or a discretionary trust or a gift or a gift on condition of precedent or something else?

Please help in return of our sanity and some

Not my specialist area (I'm a contracts lawyer) but my first thought is, can you define "law students of Manchester" suitability well for this to be a valid beneficiary group? And if not, what then?

Also, is the house his alone to give - his wife (who is likely to have an interest in the property) appears to be being left (potentially) homeless and without funds. Her potential right to the estate and her right to contest the will should be considered.

Thank you for the replies. We've answered 1-3 and got those right in our non-assessed but the last one came back marked wrong.

We said it was intended as a gift but as the class of beneficiaries is so wide it could be opened up as a gift on condition of precedent.

Unfortunately the 'feedback' just said 'incorrect'. No other advice.

I think it’s a discretionary trust.
It’s a zillion years since law school but isn’t a gift on condition like when you give someone a flat on condition they let you stay in it until you die and then they can do what they like? In that scenario they would get to enjoy the property. In the scenario you describe the wife takes ownership but solely to distribute which means she is acting as a trustee. The ‘law students of manchester’ is quite a wide class - but I think not void for uncertainty as it should be an identifiable group on any given day. Is there any issue in there not being wording along the lines of ‘to one or more of the law students of Manchester as the wife may decide’ - the intention can’t be for her to distribute to all of them, but this could be clearer.

A gift on condition is more of a 'this person can have this gift if they fall into this category' kind of thing.

Interesting about it being a discretionary trust though, it makes sense that she doesn't have to distribute it in a certain way so it's not fixed.

The exam is in a few hours What kind of cruel person would invent such a module.