| TRUST OF LAND — Family home — Joint interest — Man and woman living in property purchased in joint names — Both parties contributing to purchase price and mortgage repayments — Woman contributing substantially more than man — No express agreement as to respective beneficial interests — Whether proceeds of sale to be divided equally — Test to be applied
Stack v Dowden [2007] UKHL 17
HL(E): Lord Hoffmann, Lord Hope of Craighead, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe, Baroness Hale of Richmond and Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury: 25 April 2007
The purchase of a residential property in the joint names of cohabitants, where there was no express declaration of the beneficial interest, indicated both legal and beneficial joint tenancy, unless and until the contrary was proved in the light of the parties’ whole course of conduct in relation to the property.
The House of Lords so held (Lord Neuberger dissenting as to the reasoning but concurring in the result), in dismissing an appeal by the claimant, Barry Alan Stack, from a decision of the Court of Appeal (Chadwick, Carnwath and Smith LJJ) [2006] 1 FLR 254, given on 13 July 2005, allowing an appeal by the defendant, Dehra Ann Dowden, and varying an order made by Judge Levy QC at the Central London County Court [2005] 2 FCR 739 on 6 October 2004, so that the proceeds of sale of the property the parties had occupied should be divided 65% to the defendant and 35% to the claimant.
BARONESS HALE OF RICHMOND said that a conveyance of property, in the domestic context, into joint names established a prime facie case of joint and equal beneficial interests until the contrary was shown. How, if at all, was the contrary to be proved? Was the starting point the presumption of resulting trust, under which shares were held in proportion to the parties' financial contributions to the acquisition of the property, unless the contributor or contributors could be shown to have had a contrary intention? Or was it that the contrary could be proved by looking at all the relevant circumstances in order to discern the parties' common intention? The presumption of resulting trust was not a rule of law. Equity, being concerned with commercial realities, presumed against gifts and other windfalls. But even equity was prepared to presume a gift where the recipient was the provider's wife or child. These days, the importance to be attached to who paid for what in a domestic context could be very different from its importance in other contexts or long ago. The law had indeed moved on in response to changing social and economic conditions. The search was to ascertain the parties' shared intentions with respect to the property in the light of their whole course of conduct in relation to it: see Oxley v Hiscock [2005] Fam 211. Cases in which the joint legal owners were to be taken to have intended that their beneficial interests should be different from their legal interests would be very unusual. The instant case was, however, highly unusual and the defendant had made good her claim for a 65% share of the net proceeds of sale.
LORD HOPE OF CRAIGHEAD and LORD WALKER OF GESTINGTHORPE delivered concurring speeches. LORD HOFFMANN agreed. LORD NEUBERGER OF ABBOTSBURY delivered a speech concurring in the result.
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Appearances: Lucy Theis QC, Francis Wilkinson and Miriam Shalom (Attiyah Lone, Hammersmith) for the claimant; Christopher Lundie and Emily Saunderson (Walter Jennings and Son, Kentish Town) for the defendant.
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