Interest in Property in UK Law

But, in a case where there is no evidence of any discussion between them as to the amount of the share which each was to have – and even in a case where the evidence is that there was no discussion on that point – the question still requires an answer. It must now be accepted that (at least in this Court and below) the answer is that each is entitled to that share which the court considers fair having regard to the whole course of dealing between them in relation to the property.

If, however, the relevant conveyance contains an express declaration of trust which comprehensively declares the beneficial interests in the property or its proceeds of sale, there is no room for the application of the doctrine of resulting implied or constructive trusts unless and until the conveyance is set aside or rectified; until that event the declaration contained in the document speaks for itself.

I think that similar principles apply as when it is the other way about. The wife does not get a share in the house simply because she cleans the walls or works in the garden or helps her husband with the' painting and decorating. Those are the sort of things which a wife does for the benefit of the family without altering the title to, or interests in, the property.

It is no misuse of language to describe the property as being held by the trustee on a statutory trust if the qualifying adjective "statutory" is understood as indicating that the trust does not bear all the indicia which characterise a trust as it was recognised by the Court of Chancery apart from statute.

The law has indeed moved on in response to changing social and economic conditions. The search is to ascertain the parties' shared intentions, actual, inferred or imputed, with respect to the property in the light of their whole course of conduct in relation to it.

Even to say that much begs one important question, for it assumes that he has a valid interest in that property: whereas a stay of proceedings on the ground of immunity has normally to be granted or refused at a stage in the action when interests are claimed but not established, and indeed to require him to establish his interest before the Court (which may involve the Court's denial of his claim) is to do the very thing which the general principle requires that our Courts should not do.

So that, in the absence of all evidence, if a husband puts property into his wife's name he intends it to be a gift to her but if he puts it into joint names then (in the absence of all other evidence) the presumption is the same as a joint beneficial tenancy.