Lloyd Dorian Williams v Gerwyn Lloyd Williams
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Justice Nugee,Lady Justice Asplin,Lady Justice King |
| Judgment Date | 01 February 2024 |
| Neutral Citation | [2024] EWCA Civ 42 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Docket Number | Case No: CA-2022-001457 |
[2024] EWCA Civ 42
Lady Justice King
Lady Justice Asplin
and
Lord Justice Nugee
Case No: CA-2022-001457
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
BUSINESS AND PROPERTY COURTS IN WALES
PROPERTY, TRUSTS AND PROBATE LIST (ChD)
His Honour Judge Jarman KC (sitting as a Judge of the High Court)
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Guy Adams (instructed by Redkite Law LLP) appeared on behalf of the Appellant
James Pearce-Smith (instructed by Michelmores LLP) appeared on behalf of the 1 st and 2 nd Respondents
Hearing date: 7 December 2023
Approved Judgment
This judgment was handed down remotely at 10.30am on 1 February 2024 by circulation to the parties or their representatives by e-mail and by release to the National Archives.
Introduction
Mr Lloyd Dorian Williams, the Appellant, whom I will call “Dorian”, is one of the children of the late Mr Lloyd Williams ( “Mr Williams”) and his wife Catherine ( “Mrs Williams”). Mr Williams, who was born in 1921 and died in 2018 aged 97, first took on a tenancy of Cefn Coed Farm, a farm of some 140 acres near Neath in South Wales, in 1943 and farmed there for the rest of his life, initially as a sole trader but from 1985 in partnership with his wife and Dorian, who has himself farmed at Cefn Coed since leaving school at 16. In 1986 the freehold of Cefn Coed was acquired in the joint names of the three of them.
In 2021 Dorian brought an action against two of his siblings, Mr Gerwyn Williams ( “Gerwyn”) and Mrs Susan Ham ( “Susan”), and against the executors of his father's estate, asserting various claims in relation to the ownership of both Cefn Coed and of adjoining accommodation land at Crythan (of some 50 acres), which had been farmed together with Cefn Coed since about 1975, and had been acquired by his parents in 1985. The action was tried in Cardiff by HHJ Milwyn Jarman KC (then QC) ( “the Judge”), sitting as a Judge of the High Court, in June 2022, and he handed down judgment on 4 July 2022 at [2022] EWHC 1717 (Ch) ( “the Judgment”) dismissing these claims. As I have indicated I will refer, as the Judge did, to the parents as Mr and Mrs Williams and to their children by their given names, without of course thereby intending any disrespect.
This appeal concerns a single question, which is whether the freehold of Cefn Coed was acquired by Mr and Mrs Williams and Dorian for themselves as joint beneficial tenants or as beneficial tenants in common in equal shares. This was only one of the issues, and very much a subsidiary one, at trial. The Judge held that Cefn Coed was acquired by them as beneficial tenants in common.
Dorian appeals this issue with the permission of Lewison LJ and contends that the Judge should have held that Cefn Coed was acquired by them as beneficial joint tenants.
We heard interesting submissions from Mr Guy Adams on his behalf, and from Mr James Pearce-Smith on behalf of Gerwyn and Susan, who were the active Respondents to the appeal. For the reasons that follow, I prefer those of Mr James Pearce-Smith and would dismiss the appeal.
Facts
The Judge gave a full and careful account of the facts in the Judgment. For present purposes they can be summarised as follows.
Mr Williams was born in 1921. He initially farmed Cefn Coed as a tenant, it being let to him in 1943 by the owner, a Mr Rice Evans. In 1956 he married his wife Catherine. They had 4 children, Rhian (who was not a party to the proceedings), Gerwyn, Dorian and Susan, all born in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Dorian himself was born in August 1961.
From about 1975 Cefn Coed was farmed as a single unit with the adjoining accommodation land at Crythan. Mr Rice Evans died in 1978 and Mr Williams tried to buy Cefn Coed from the estate but was outbid, and the freehold was acquired by R J Huggard (Contractors) Ltd ( “Huggard”) in 1979. In the early 1980s Huggard sought a substantial increase in the rent, and after arbitration the rent was increased from £100 to £1500. Huggard also served a significant schedule of dilapidations which had to be attended to.
In 1985 Mr Williams was able to buy Crythan. It was bought for £45,500 and by a conveyance dated 25 May 1985 conveyed into the joint names of Mr and Mrs Williams. Mr Williams was then in his mid-60s and his wife was some 10 years his junior. The land was unregistered and the conveyance contained an express declaration that the land was conveyed to them to hold as beneficial joint tenants.
At about the same time a partnership deed was entered into between Mr and Mrs Williams and Dorian in respect of a partnership called Lloyd Williams and Son (or L. Williams and Son) which was formed to take over the farming business formerly carried on by Mr Williams. The partnership deed is dated 1 April 1985 and provides that the partnership was deemed to commence on that date. In the absence of clear evidence to the contrary, the Judge held that it was likely that it was signed before Crythan was purchased. Dorian was then 23 and had been working full time on the farm since leaving school at 16, and has continued to do so since. The partnership deed provided that profits and losses should be divided and borne between his parents and himself in equal one-third shares.
In 1986 Cefn Coed was also bought, from Huggard. The purchase price was £40,000, the entirety of which was borrowed on mortgage from The Agricultural Mortgage Corporation plc ( “AMC”), Mr and Mrs Williams having already used their cash savings to buy Crythan. The title had been registered at HM Land Registry in 1979, so the conveyance took the form of a transfer on the appropriate Land Registration form (which was Form 19(Co.) for the “Transfer of whole by a company or corporation”). The transfer was dated 3 March 1986 and transferred the land into the joint names of Mr and Mrs Williams and Dorian. It did not contain any express declaration as to whether the land was to be held by them beneficially as joint tenants or tenants in common, Form 19(Co.) not containing anything prompting one to do this, or indeed any obvious space for such a declaration. The form for an application to register dealings (Form A4) did contain a box (Box 8) asking in the case of a transfer or assent to joint owners:
“Can the survivor of them give a valid receipt for capital money arising on a disposition of the land? State yes or no in box”
But it was in fact left blank.
Mr and Mrs Williams and Dorian also executed a legal charge in favour of AMC, again dated 3 March 1986, securing the sum of £40,000 repayable by instalments over 40 years at an initial interest rate of 14% per annum. The Judge found that it was not in dispute that because of the age of Mr and Mrs Williams it would have been difficult for them to obtain the mortgage by themselves and that Dorian was included because he was younger and thus acceptable to AMC.
The three of them were registered as proprietors at HM Land Registry on 1 April 1986. At the same time a restriction was entered in the familiar form, that is to say:
“No disposition by one proprietor of the land (being the survivor of joint proprietors and not being a trust corporation) under which capital money arises is to be registered except under an Order of the registrar or of the Court.”
I will refer to this as “the capital money restriction”.
Both Crythan and Cefn Coed were thereafter shown as assets on the accounts drawn up for the partnership. This formed the basis of Dorian's first claim at trial, which was that they were partnership assets and had “enured” to him alone after the deaths of his parents (his mother in 2013 and his father in 2018). But the Judge rejected this claim, accepting evidence from the partnership accountant that he had included the farms in the accounts without specific instructions to do so, and without having had any conversations about including them, and had done so in order to enhance the balance sheet value of the partnership so as to make it easier for the partners to apply for borrowing in the future if they ever needed to. The accounts were not signed by the partners, and it was not suggested that there was any express agreement by them that either farm would become partnership assets.
In those circumstances the Judge held that the inclusion of the farms in the partnership accounts was an indication that the parties intended that they should be partnership assets but not conclusive, and went on to hold that neither farm was an asset of the partnership. Dorian sought permission to appeal this conclusion but such permission was refused by Lewison LJ, and an application to re-open this decision was subsequently also refused: see Williams v Williams [2023] EWCA Civ 1465.
In 1987 Mr and Mrs Williams sold two fields at Crythan for £15,000 and used the money to reduce the AMC borrowing on Cefn Coed to £25,000. The mortgage was converted to an interest only one the following year.
Mr and Mrs Williams made a number of wills over the years. On 10 August 1988 they executed mutual wills. These were professionally drafted by T. Lewellyn Jones of Neath, and bear the reference SLJ, that is Sara Llewellyn Jones, who in each case was the first named executor. She has acted as Mr Williams' solicitor for many years, and is now one of his executors. By their 1988 wills, each of Mr and Mrs Williams left their estate to each other provided the other survived for 28 days. By clause 2 of each will if that did not happen each left their shares in Cefn Coed and Crythan to Dorian and Gerwyn respectively as...
To continue reading
Request your trial