Student number:1357775
Module leader: Dr. Eleanor Staples
Module code:CL5301
Essay title: “In Stack v Dowden, the majority of the House of Lords gave legal effect to context and considered that special rules should apply to determine beneficial ownership of the [family] home.”
Module title :Land Law
Word count:1993
This paper will spend a majority of its analysis on beneficial ownership and why it should be assessed differently in the domestic context of a family home as opposed to the commercial context . Before getting to this stage though , a few more basic questions need to be answered .After briefly analysing these questions , the paper will then go on to explain how the courts have interpreted the identification and quantification of beneficial interests for joint legal ownership and sole legal ownership through the express,resulting and constructive trusts in the context of domestic
Firstly , lets look at what is a trust. A trust exists where there is a separation between legal title and equitable enjoyment. A person who holds a trust will own the legal title to the property, while the person who benefits from the trust(the beneficiary) can enjoy certain equitable interests. There are two different types of trusts that are looked at in Stack v Dowden and these are express trusts and implied trusts .Express trusts are applicable mostly in joint legal ownership cases where there is a declaration of trust which gives equal shares to both parties .A purchase money resulting trust arises where the claimant to the trust pays o...
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...ation of beneficial interests should be considered, to find a balance between trying to find the true intentions of the party,take into consideration of both direct and indirect contributions to the property ,do justice in equity for weaker claimants by imputing and weigh the contributions wisely for a fair distribution of the beneficial interest. Being able to do all this through one particular test will be virtually impossible as the Law Commission has figured out.Hence confusion in this area will persist due to the complexity of relationships in the domestic context but the intentions of the judges to more or less provide justice instead of creating certainty of law will be a constant among the various confusions that this area tends to bring up.
Lord Wilberforce, the judges who presided over the Anns v. Merton case used a two-step test in determining the scope of proximity between the homeowner and the municipality. The first part of the test determined whether the relationship between the two parties was sufficient enough so that failure to exercise a duty of care by one of the parties would result in damages sustained by the other. The second step, pursuant upon the first step looks at any aspects that would limit the obligations placed on the party to exercise a duty of care. This test and the Anns v. Merton case set a strong precedent that was used in the Kamloops v. Nielson case, the first of its kind in Canada.
Case name: Peter K. Dementas v The Estate of Jack Tallas, 764 P.2d 628 (1988)
The importance of social context in Land Law and the reforms which have occurred as a result cannot be ignored or their significance understated. In particular is the impact of the shift in the twentieth century to ‘emergence of a property owning, particularly a real-property-mortgaged-to-a-building-society-owning-democracy’. Such growth could hardly have been anticipated when the LPA 1925 was drafted and subsequently became statute. As a consequence of this growth the doctrine of the resulting trust and to a greater extent, the constructive trust became a robust mechanism by which non legal owners could establish beneficial interests in the home. Swadling comments on the ‘complete change in attitude’ between the emphasis on security of ownership of the home in Boland and the free marketability of land which we see in Flegg. He states ‘one wonders what has happened to the demands of social justice which justified their Lordships decision in 1980 (in Boland) over such a brief passage of time’. Did the House of Lords fail to resolve the very practical issue with which they were presented that had evolved over the passage of social change since the drafting of the 1925 legislation?
Tooher, Joycey, ‘Jubilant Jamie and the Elephant Egg: Acquisition of Title by Finding’ (1998) 6 Australian Property Law Journal 117
Though there is no need for either party to use the word trust, the courts must be able to construe some sort of positive intent that the equitable interest was not to reside in the transferee. However Lord Millett later in Twinsectra Ltd denounces the emphasis previously placed on the party’s intent. Twinsectra involved a borrower seeking short term finance for the purchase of land and Lord Millett in this case states that Quistclose trusts are resulting trusts which arise by operation of law. His conclusion is based on the theory that resulting trust emerges when there is a transfer of property in circumstances in which the transferor did not intend to benefit the recipient. Carnworth J, however contends that from Twinsectra it seems that the parties place no real significance to the purpose so even applying Lord Millett’s newly configured resulting trust analysis, there is no real intent on the lenders part to ensure that the recipient does not receive the money at his free disposal. Furthermore, a key aspect of any intent to create a trust always revolves around the funds being held separately and so by devaluing this factor Lord Millett is detracting from traditional trust law principles and in the process is making it much easier to find a Quistclose trust in situations where it was never
In Palgo Holdings v Gowans , the High Court considered the distinction between a security in the form of a pawn or pledge and a security in the form of a chattel mortgage. The question was whether section 6 of the Pawnbrokers and Second-hand Dealers Act 1996 (NSW) (‘the 1996 Pawnbrokers Act’) extended to a business that structured its loan agreements as chattel mortgages. In a four to one majority (Kirby J dissenting) the High Court found that chattel mortgages fell outside the ambit of section 6 of the 1996 Pawnbrokers Act. However, beyond the apparent simplicity of this decision, the reasoning of the majority raises a number of questions. Was it a “turning back to literalism” as Kirby J suggested, or was it simply a case where the court declares that parliament has missed its target?
Palmer, the defendant, claimed that he has the right to the property according to the law because he was named the heir in the will (Riggs v Palmer). The plaintiffs, Mrs. Riggs and Mrs. Preston, however brought this action before the court to fight against this will, for they believed that Palmer should no longer be entitled to the property, which he so wrongfully gained. The objective of the statute is to address issues concerning wills so that testators could carry out their final wishes by passing their property off to their loved ones (Riggs v Palmer). This fact is what gave rise to different arguments from the majority to the dissenting judges. The issues were how to interpret the law rationally, and whether Palmer, who murdered his grandfather should be entitled to the property. The judges believed that although the law at that time did not address the issue of what would happen to the property in the event that the heir murdered the testator, to allow such a thing would never be the intention of legislators (Riggs v Palmer). Had legislators ever
It has been generally acknowledged that the doctrine of proprietary estoppel has much in common with common intention constructive trusts, i.e. those that concern the acquisition of an equitable interest in another person’s land. In effect, the general aim is the recognition of real property rights informally created. The similarity between the two doctrines become clear in a variety of cases where the court rely on either of the two doctrines. To show the distinction between the doctrines, this essay will analyse the principles, roots and rationale of both doctrines. With reference to the relevant case law it will be possible to highlight the subtle differences between the doctrines in the cases where there seems to be some overlap. Three key cases where this issue surfaced were the following: Lloyds Bank Plc v. Rosset (1991), Yaxley v. Gotts (1999) and Stack v. Dowden (2007). This essay will describe the relevant judgements in these cases in order to show the differences between the two doctrines.
Introduction This submission will discuss the problems created by the Doctrine of Judicial Precedent and will attempt to find solutions to them. Whereas, English Law has formed over some 900 years it was not until the middle of the 19th Century that the modern Doctrine was ‘reaffirmed’. London Tramways Co. Ltd V London County Council (1898). Law is open to interpretation, all decisions made since the birth of the English Legal System, have had some form of impact whether it is beneficial or not The term ‘Judicial Precedent’ has at least two meanings, one of which is the process where Judges will follow the decisions of previously decided cases, the other is what is known as an ‘Original Precedent’ that is a case that creates and applies a new rule. Precedents are to be found in Law Reports and are divided up into ‘Binding’ and ‘Persuasive’.
The English legal system is ostensibly embedded on a foundation of a ‘high degree of certainty with adaptability’ based on a steady ‘mode’ of legal reasoning. This rests on four propositions
Family Law Key Cases, by Helen L. Conway, edited by Jacqueline Martin & Chris Turner, Published by Routledge 2013
Accessed 16/03/2012. http://www.law201.co.uk/95.pdfaccessed on 16/03/2012. http://www.oup.com/uk/orc/bin/9780199219742/01student/mindmaps/loveland_mindmaps_royal_prerogative.pdfaccessed on 17/03/2012. http://www.justice.gov.uk/royal-prerogative.pdf accessed on 17/03/2012. http://www.justice.gov.uk/royal-prerogative.pdf accessed on 18/03/2012.
United Kingdom is a country with a distinctive set of legal system. It is fairly different from other countries having civil law based legal systems. The legal system in the United Kingdom consists of various sources of law, where other civil law based countries rely only on a written set of law. European influences on the English Legal System came much later in near decades. This essay will aim to examine the development of the English Legal System by reviewing applications of various sources of law in the English Legal System furthermore to discuss the recent European influences on the law of England.
Law Commission accepted that there are compelling reasons due to which the concept of overriding interest cannot be abolished altogether. And denying of overriding status will contradict paramount policies. However, LRA 2002 has affected it in a number ...
The courts of England and Wales acknowledge that the above must be something of value, in order to amount to consideration. A valuable consideration in the perspective of the English La...