Stokes v Anderson
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE NOURSE,LORD JUSTICE RALPH GIBSON,LORD JUSTICE LLOYD |
| Judgment Date | 20 December 1990 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1990] EWCA Civ J1220-6 |
| Docket Number | 90/1070 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 20 December 1990 |
[1990] EWCA Civ J1220-6
Lord Justice Lloyd
Lord Justice Nourse
Lord Justice Ralph Gibson
90/1070
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE TUNBRIDGE WELLS COUNTY COURT
(HIS HONOUR JUDGE MACMANUS)
Royal Courts of Justice
MR ROGER KAYE Q.C. and MR MILAN DULOVIC, instructed by Messrs Minet Pering, appeared for the Appellant (Plaintiff).
MR RICHARD McCOMBE Q.C. and MR CHARLES ATKINS, instructed by Messrs David Coupe, Bradbury & Co. (Kirkham), appeared for the Respondent (Defendant).
This is a dispute between an unmarried couple as to the beneficial ownership of a house in which they formerly lived together; cf. Gissing v. Gissing [1971] A.C. 886 and Grant v. Edwards [1986] Ch. 638. His Honour Judge MacManus, sitting in the Tunbridge Wells County Court, decided that the woman was entitled to half the beneficial interest in the house. The man has now appealed to this court, contending that the woman has no beneficial interest, alternatively that it does not exceed 15 per cent at the most.
The trial occupied the whole or some part of three consecutive days in September 1989. Many points of dispute were investigated in the evidence. On the third day, 15th September, the judge delivered a relatively short ex tempore judgment, of which we have a note approved by him. He did not make findings on some of the matters in dispute and some of his findings on other matters were not supported by any review of the evidence. The documentary evidence was incomplete in several important respects. In these somewhat unsatisfactory circumstances, and except at important points, I will state the material facts without distinguishing between those which were admitted or found on the one hand and those which must be assumed to have been admitted or found on the other.
Mr Graham Joseph Stokes is a piping design engineer. Miss Judith Mary Anderson is a nurse. They first met in May 1985, when they were both working in Saudi Arabia, and a close relationship soon developed between them. In June they spent five days together in Paris. While they were there Mr Stokes made a proposal of marriage, but Miss Anderson felt that such talk was premature. Shortly afterwards he bought her a wedding ring in London.
Before he met Miss Anderson, Mr Stokes, who was divorced from his wife Linda, had resumed living with her in an attempt to effect a reconciliation. They were living at Stone Cottage, Roughway, Tonbridge, Kent, a property which they had purchased in September 1983 as joint legal and beneficial owners at a price of £88,000, of which £30,000 was raised on mortgage. During the summer of 1985, after the start of Mr Stokes' relationship with Miss Anderson, he and Mrs Linda Stokes finally parted. They arrived at an agreement over Stone Cottage, for which purpose they obtained three valuations, one at £104,000, one at some lower figure and one at £10,000 or £15,000 higher. They worked on a figure of £120,000 which, after deducting the mortgage for £30,000, produced an equity worth £90,000. They agreed that Mr Stokes should acquire Mrs Stokes' half share of the beneficial interest in Stone Cottage in return for the provision of £45,000 towards her purchase of another house. In about October 1985 she acquired a house for £49,950, of which £40,000 was raised on mortgage. As between the two of them, Mr Stokes became solely liable for the mortgage repayments.
Mr Stokes' posting to Saudi Arabia had ended in June 1985. Miss Anderson continued to work there until she returned to England at the end of August. In September Mr Stokes took Miss Anderson to see Stone Cottage. On 26th September Miss Anderson paid Mrs Linda Stokes £5,000 as the balance of the £45,000 with which Mr Stokes had agreed to provide her. The circumstances in which that sum was paid are of crucial importance and must be closely examined in due course.
Also in September Miss Anderson took Mr Stokes to meet her parents at their home in Lancashire. By that time she at any rate believed that they were going to be married. The possibility of a church wedding was discussed, although there was a difficulty there because Miss Anderson is a Roman Catholic. A hotel was booked for a reception on 28th December 1985, but it was later cancelled at Mr Stokes' instigation. In the autumn of 1985 Miss Anderson joined Mr Stokes in Norway, where he was then working, for five weeks. They spent Christmas together in Lancashire, after which they both returned to Norway.
In May or June 1986 Miss Anderson came back to live in England. In May Mr Stokes reduced the mortgage on Mrs Linda Stokes' new house from £40,000 to £30,000. On 6th May, at his request, Miss Anderson paid him £7,000, whereupon he sent a cheque for £10,000 to the building society. Again the circumstances in which the £7,000 was paid are of crucial importance and I will return to them later.
Also in May 1986, after the payment of the £7,000, Mr Stokes and Miss Anderson went to a solicitor in Tonbridge, who drew up a document in the form of a promissory note which they both signed. That document has since been lost and no copy is available. The probability is that repayment of the £12,000 was to be made on demand plus interest at a specified rate above base rate. This transaction came about because Miss Anderson's father had been very angry when he heard that there was no document evidencing the payments which she had made. The purpose of the promissory note was, as Miss Anderson put it, to safeguard her interest.
Between May or June 1986 and August 1988, when proceedings were issued, Miss Anderson spent much of her time at Stone Cottage. She did a certain amount of work decorating and working on the grounds of the property. She also claimed that she had spent about £3,000 of her own money on the property. The judge found that she was mainly reimbursed by Mr Stokes for her expenditure, but that she probably spent some £2,500 of her own money. That finding has been attacked in this court and I will return to it later.
During the autumn of 1986 Miss Anderson returned to Saudi Arabia to work there for a period. She then came back to England to do a midwifery course. At that stage her close relationship with Mr Stokes was still continuing. From the end of 1986, if not before, she lived at Stone Cottage on a permanent basis. She was there for the whole of 1987, with Mr Stokes coming back from Norway at regular intervals of every four to six weeks. Miss Anderson still hoped that they would be married, but there was a cooling off on Mr Stokes' side and the relationship gradually deteriorated.
In May 1988, when the deterioration was well advanced, Miss Anderson signed an informal note, witnessed by her mother, stating that she had no claim to an interest in Stone Cottage. She signed it because she thought that it would give her some peace. That document is also now lost and no copy is available. Shortly afterwards, on 15th June, solicitors acting for Mr Stokes wrote the first of a series of letters requiring Miss Anderson to give up possession of Stone Cottage.
On 1st August 1988 Mr Stokes issued an originating application in the county court seeking an order for possession of Stone Cottage against Miss Anderson. That was countered by an originating application issued by her on the following day claiming non-molestation and ouster orders under the Domestic Violence and Matrimonial Proceedings Act 1976. In an affidavit in support of her application Miss Anderson claimed that she had put some £15,000 towards renovating the property and that she therefore had an equitable interest in it. She gave notice of her intention to defend the proceedings for possession by reason of that interest. The matter was first heard on 19th August 1988, when both applications were consolidated, directions were given and Mr Stokes undertook that he would not molest, assault or in any way interfere with Miss Anderson.
At the trial before Judge MacManus in September 1989 evidence was given by a number of witnesses, including Mr Stokes, Miss Anderson and a friend of hers, Mrs Julia Dalzell, who had gone to stay with them for a week in Norway in October 1985 and with whom they stayed in Lancashire for a friend's wedding in March 1986. She gave evidence of conversations in which the payments of £5,000 and £7,000 had been discussed. The judge recorded that both Mr Stokes and Miss Anderson gave their evidence well. He said that there were undoubtedly inconsistencies in Miss Anderson's evidence, but that it seemed to him that they were caused by human frailty rather than by lying. He did not think that she had come to court to tell lies. He also found Mrs Dalzell a most impressive witness and said that he relied on her evidence greatly in deciding where the truth lay. Although the judge did not accuse Mr Stokes of deliberately trying to mislead him, there were a number of matters, especially the circumstances in which the payments of £5,000 and £7,000 were made, on which Mr Stokes' evidence was rejected.
Mr Stokes' case is that the two payments of £5,000 and £7,000 were loans made by Miss Anderson, to be repaid by him on demand together with interest. Miss Anderson's case is that they were payments made pursuant to a common intention that she should have half the beneficial interest in Stone Cottage. The judge preferred Miss Anderson's version. He held that Mr Stokes and Miss Anderson were each entitled to half the beneficial interest. He ordered that Stone Cottage should be sold and the proceeds divided equally between them.
The two principal questions which have been...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Cox v Jones
...at [1986] Ch 638, 657H) in Grant v Edwards; and had been acknowledged and accepted by Lord Justice Nourse in Stokes v Anderson [1991] 1 FLR 391, 399F. If these problems are to be solved by an analysis based on constructive trust, which requires the imputation of some common intention at th......
-
Penelope Susan Van Laethem Kim Henry Brooker and Caradoc Estates Ltd
...[1991] 1 AC 107, at 132; Gissing v Gissing, [1971] AC at 901; Grant v Edwards [1986] Ch 638, at 651–2, per Mustill LJ; Stokes v Anderson [1991] 1 FLR 391, 398. But in Banner Homes v Luff Developments Ltd [20020] EWCA Civ 18, [2002] 2 All ER 117, 138, Chadwick LJ said that where the arrangem......
-
Mortgage Corporation v Shaire and Others
...789, [1997] 3 All ER 470, [1997] 1 WLR 1356. Roberts v Johnstone [1989] QB 878, [1988] 3 WLR 1247, CA. Stokes v Anderson [1991] FCR 539, [1991] 1 FLR 391, Thames Guaranty Ltd v Campbell [1985] QB 210, [1984] 2 All ER 585, [1984] 3 WLR 109, CA. TSB plc v Marshall [1998] 2 FLR 769, CC (Newpor......
-
Supperstone v Hurst
...is based upon the speech of Lord Diplock in Gissing v Gissing [1971] AC 886, at 909D and the judgment of Nourse LJ, in Stokes v Anderson [1991] 1 FLR 391, at 399–400. The second is that a review of the whole of the parties' course of dealing reveals what was their assumed common intention a......