Natalie O'Neill v Shaun Holland
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Justice David Richards,Lord Justice Nugee,Lord Justice Henderson |
| Judgment Date | 27 November 2020 |
| Neutral Citation | [2020] EWCA Civ 1583 |
| Date | 27 November 2020 |
| Docket Number | Case No: B2/2019/0348 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
[2020] EWCA Civ 1583
Lord Justice David Richards
Lord Justice Henderson
and
Lord Justice Nugee
Case No: B2/2019/0348
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE COUNTY COURT AT MANCHESTER
HIS HONOUR JUDGE PELLING QC
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Mr Simon Charles (instructed by Joe Egan Solicitors) for the Appellant
Mr Leslie Blohm QC and Mr Michael Horton (instructed on a direct access basis) for the Respondent
Hearing date: 20 October 2020
Approved Judgment
Introduction
The central issue on this second appeal is whether the claimant and appellant, Ms Natalie O'Neill (“Ms O'Neill”), has established, on the basis of the facts found by District Judge Obodai (“the District Judge”) at a trial in 2017, that she has a 50% beneficial interest as an equitable co-owner in 53 Worsley Road, Farnworth, Bolton (“53 Worsley Road” or “the Property”), where she co-habited with the defendant and respondent to the appeal, Mr Shaun Holland (“Mr Holland”), between late 2000 and July 2012. Legal title to the Property was vested in the sole name of Ms O'Neill's father, Mr John O'Neill (“John O'Neill”) from its purchase in March 1999 until March 2008, when he transferred the Property for a nil consideration into the sole name of Mr Holland.
At that stage, Mr Holland was in a long-established relationship with Ms O'Neill, the Property had been their home for over 7 years, and they had three young children living with them (Shaun junior, born in 1997; Leonie, born in 2003; and a second daughter, Charlie, born in 2004). In July 2012, however, the relationship between Ms O'Neill and Mr Holland came to an end. Ms O'Neill left the Property with the two younger children, and at a later date Shaun junior also came to live with her. Mr Holland has continued to live at 53 Worsley Road at all material times from July 2012 onwards.
In February 2016, Ms O'Neill started the present proceedings in the Manchester District Registry of the High Court. The proceedings were later transferred to the County Court. By her particulars of claim, settled for her by Mr Simon Charles of counsel, who has acted for her throughout and appeared at the hearing before us, she sought (among other relief) a declaration that Mr Holland held the beneficial interest in 53 Worsley Road on trust for the two of them in equal shares. She also sought similar declarations in relation to:
(a) a portfolio of 12 buy-to-let properties, which had been acquired in the sole name of Mr Holland (or, in one case, in the name of a company of his) on various dates between 2002 and 2010; and
(b) a further property at 30 Broadway Street, Worsley, Manchester (“30 Broadway”), which she alleged had been bought by them jointly as a future family home, although again it had been acquired in Mr Holland's sole name.
In support of her case that she had a 50% beneficial interest in the 12 buy-to-let properties, Ms O'Neill alleged that she and Mr Holland had established a joint property business, to which she had materially contributed in various ways, or in the alternative that there had been a partnership at will between them.
The original purchase of 53 Worsley Road in John O'Neill's name in 1999 preceded the start of the buy-to-let business. Ms O'Neill's pleaded case was that John O'Neill purchased the Property without a mortgage, for £28,000, with the intention that after it had been renovated he would allow her and Mr Holland to live in it rent-free as their family home. This was denied by Mr Holland in his defence. His pleaded version of events, in summary, was that he bid successfully for the Property at an auction in London and provided the whole of the purchase price of £28,000, but since he did not want to complete the purchase in his own name he approached John O'Neill, who agreed to take the transfer in his name and hold the Property on trust for Mr Holland. Mr Holland says that he then paid the £28,000 in cash to John O'Neill, and the purchase was duly completed in the latter's name.
It appears to be common ground that Mr Holland then refurbished the Property, and he and Ms O'Neill moved in with Shaun junior to occupy it as their home around Christmas 2000.
In relation to the buy-to-let properties, Mr Holland denied that there had been any business relationship between him and Ms O'Neill, or any partnership. His case was that the business was his alone, and the properties were vested in his name because they belonged to him and had been bought with his funds. The position was essentially the same in relation to 30 Broadway, which he had bought as a good investment and with no fixed intention to use it as a family home.
The trial took place before the District Judge over six days in September 2017. She handed down her reserved judgment, running to 50 pages and 184 paragraphs, on 4 December 2017. She rejected Ms O'Neill's claim that there had been a business agreement between her and Mr Holland in relation to the buy-to-let properties, and found that any assistance which she had given him in relation to his business was explicable on the basis of their personal relationship. As the District Judge put it, in paragraph 84 of her judgment:
“The view the court formed of the Claimant's evidence on this issue is that she was happy to help and become involved but only in the context of being the Defendant's partner. Whatever she did, she did because she was in a relationship with the Defendant and not because there was an agreement in relation to the buy-to-let property business.”
Ms O'Neill's partnership claim was also rejected, because Mr Charles had realistically accepted that it was unlikely to add anything to the claim based on a business agreement: see paragraph 9 of the judgment. There has been no appeal against the District Judge's conclusions on those issues.
In relation to the acquisition of 53 Worsley Road, the District Judge heard oral evidence from Ms O'Neill, from a friend of John O'Neill's, Mr Michael Smith, who according to Ms O'Neill had lent her father £20,000 towards the purchase, and from Mr Holland, who continued to maintain that he had provided the bulk of the purchase price in cash to John O'Neill, although now accepting that he had probably borrowed around £6,000 from him. John O'Neill himself had sadly died in 2009, so the court did not have the benefit of his version of events.
It is fair to say that the District Judge was distinctly unimpressed by the evidence of these witnesses, and in particular by the evidence of Mr Holland whom she described on more than one occasion as “a stranger to the truth”. The one solid piece of contemporary documentary evidence was the memorandum of sale from the auction house, which named John O'Neill as the purchaser and was signed by Mr Holland in the capacity of “Agent”. So far as Mr Smith was concerned, the District Judge found that, even if he had made a loan to John O'Neill, it was not his money which was used to purchase 53 Worsley Road: see paragraph 133. The District Judge's eventual conclusion, at paragraph 149, was that:
“53 Worsley Road was purchased by John O'Neill using money from identified and unidentified sources to be a family home for his daughter and her family.”
I will need to examine in more detail later in this judgment the circumstances in which John O'Neill came to transfer the Property to Mr Holland for no consideration in March 2008. It is enough to record at this stage that the District Judge was satisfied that the circumstances were such as to give rise to a common intention constructive trust in favour of Ms O'Neill, and that her beneficial interest in the Property was a half share. The District Judge stated her conclusion at paragraph 161, in these terms:
“Therefore, when deduced objectively from their conduct, and applying the principles set out in Stack v Dowden and Jones v Kernott particularly given that the source of funds had come from her father the court finds that the Claimant's interest was to be a half share. This was intended to be a family home for the Claimant, the Defendant and their children, a family home that would be held in equal shares.”
The District Judge then went on to consider the evidence in relation to 30 Broadway, concluding at paragraph 173 that it “was a property purchased with the intention that the Claimant would have a beneficial interest in it” for a number of reasons, including that “there was clearly an intention that it would be a family home” and her rejection of Mr Holland's evidence that “Broadway would be an investment property”. The District Judge then summarised her reasoning at paragraph 174:
“The finding that the court makes is that this was a family home and the Claimant has established on the balance of probabilities… that this was to be a family home intended for them to move into in due course to live in and in which she would have a beneficial interest. The court finds that after 53 Worsley Road, the parties intended to move into a bigger home nearer their daughters' school. The determination the court made regarding 53 Worsley Road was that the Claimant's interest was a 50% share. It makes the same finding in relation to 30 Broadway because that was the common intention deduced from all of the conduct and evidence.”
The District Judge's conclusions in her main judgment gave rise to various consequential issues, which led to two further hearings and reserved judgments. The first further hearing took...
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