Let me take
this opportunity to wish everyone a happy new year!
If you are
looking for a new year’s resolution why not take this as an opportunity to
assess your estate and prepare it for any eventuality. By this I mean starting
to think about how your estate will pass following your death or who really
owns your property.
On this
latter point, the very recent case of O’Kelly v Davies [2014] highlights
that the way in which a property is registered does not necessarily determine
who is the owner of that property. In this case, a husband and wife owned two
properties. Whilst they both intended to have an interest in both properties,
they had transferred both properties into the wife’s name to fraudulently claim
benefits. Following a dispute between the parties over the properties the Court
found that the husband had an equal interest in the properties with his wife,
not because the transfer of the properties was unlawful but because it was
their common intention to both benefit from the properties. The conduct itself
gave rise to a constructive trust.
I recently published an article on this legal
principle in the Kent and Sussex Courier, in which I highlight a few common
examples where a property is registered in the name of one person but, in the
eyes of the law, is actually owned or partly owned by someone else. If you
would like a copy of this article please contact my colleague Dino Sikkel at dino.sikkel@cripps.co.uk.