Constructive trusts: Keeping up with the Jones

Naveed Ali outlines the development of the constructive trust principle to aid cohabitees ‘The court should establish the intentions of the parties with evidence; where intention cannot be inferred, the court may impute an intention which the parties may never have founded.’ The regulation of proprietary rights after a breakdown of marriage is extensive: the …
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Trusts And Divorce: Family divided

Divorce case Arif v Anwar and Rehan [2015] raises interesting points on beneficial ownership and also costs, as Penelope Reed QC and Nicholas Fairbank report ‘There are no winners when the overall assets are reduced so significantly by the legal costs that adequate provision for the parties is circumscribed.’ In Sofia Arif v Arif Anwar, …
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Trusts And The Family Home: No clarity for cohabitants

Lyndsey West and James Lister revisit cohabitants’ property interests on separation in the Supreme Court decision in Jones v Kernott ‘While the decision as to the result in Jones was unanimous, the conclusion was reached in different ways. The principle source of disagreement revolved around the question of whether it was open to the court …
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Trusts: Silence is golden

Claire Stewart contemplates recent case law on disputed ownership in the light of Jones v Kernott ‘Traditionally, a constructive trust will arise in equity where it would be unconscionable to allow a legal owner of a property to retain the beneficial ownership of it.’ This article will consider the recent judgment of the Court of …
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Cohabitants: Clear intentions

Ellie Foster summarises the Supreme Court decision in Jones v Kernott and considers its impact ‘There is a real practical difficulty when it comes to analysing the respective contributions made to a property over a long period of cohabitation.’ The Supreme Court has been tasked with an unusually high amount of family work in recent …
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Co-Habitation: Buyer beware

Graeme Fraser and Adam Colenso explain the nature and timing of advice that residential property lawyers should provide to cohabitant buyers in light of Jones v Kernott and the SRA Code of Conduct 2011. ‘Jones v Kernott [2011] illustrates the serious problems that can arise when cohabitant purchasers do not enter into an adequate declaration …
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