Presumption of Advancement in UK Law

Accordingly, one is really driven back to consider this matter without the assistance of authority; and, being so unassisted, I ask myself what is to be inferred as to the nature of the transaction when the simple payment of money is proved or admitted between strangers.

In these cases equity searches for the subjective intention of the transferor. Plainly, self-serving statements or conduct of a transferor, who may long after the transaction be regretting earlier generosity, carry little or no weight. But words or conduct more proximate to the transaction itself should be given the significance that they naturally bear as part of the overall picture.

My Lords, I do not distinguish between the purchase of shares and the acquisition of shares upon allotment, and I think that the law is clear that on the one hand where a man purchases shares and they are registered in the name of a stranger there is a resulting trust in favour of the purchaser; on the other hand, if they are registered in the name of a child or one to whom the purchaser then stood in loco parentis, there is no such resulting trust but a presumption of advancement.

If he proves that the property is vested in the defendant alone but that the plaintiff provided part of the purchase money, or voluntarily transferred the property to the defendant, the plaintiff establishes his claim under a resulting trust unless either the contrary presumption of advancement displaces the presumption of resulting trust or the defendant leads evidence to rebut the presumption of resulting trust.

A party to an illegality can recover by virtue of a legal or equitable property interest if, but only if, he can establish his title without relying on his own illegality. In cases where the presumption of advancement applies, the plaintiff is faced with the presumption of gift and therefore cannot claim under a resulting trust unless and until he has rebutted that presumption of gift: for those purposes the plaintiff does have to rely on the underlying illegality and therefore fails.

He cannot say that the house is his own and, at one and the same time, say that it is his wife's. As against his wife, he wants to say that it belongs to him. Either it was conveyed to her for her own use absolutely; or it was conveyed to her as trustee for her husband. The presumption is that it was conveyed to her for her own use; and he does not rebut that presumption by saying that he only did it to defeat his creditors, I think it belongs to her.

That is why I say that his evidence strengthens the presumption of advancement, As far as I can see, the only possible alternative to what I have Just described would be the husband dishonestly putting the house in his wife's name wish the intention of himself having the beneficial interest in it, and also with the intention, when hefailed in business, to go to his creditors and say quite untruthfully and dishonestly;