(delivering the Judgment of the Board): This appeal from the Court of Appeal in Singapore concerns the beneficial ownership of six houses and a business which were placed in the sole name of Foo Stie Wah ("the wife") at the instance of or with the concurrence of Neo Tai Kim ("the husband"). The trial occupied some six weeks. The trial judge held that one house, purchased as the matrimonial home, and also the business belonged beneficially to the wife alone, but that the remaining five houses were owned beneficially by the husband and the wife in equal shares. The Court of Appeal reached the same conclusion. The husband appeals in relation to the former matrimonial home and the business, seeking to reduce the wife's interest to a half-share. The wife cross-appeals in relation to the five houses, seeking to increase her half-share to absolute ownership of the whole.

The parties were married in 1951 according to Chinese rites. They established their matrimonial home in rented accommodation. In 1954 the husband took a second wife, and established a second matrimonial home. In 1974 the husband and his first wife separated.

At the time of his first marriage the husband was employed as a clerk in an import-export firm. Shortly thereafter he became engaged on his own account in various hotel, catering and canteen businesses. In 1960 he took over the catering service at the Paya Lebar International Airport, where he operated under the name of the International Airport Restaurant. In June 1962 he became the sole proprietor of the Shamrock Hotel, in which he had previously been interested as a partner. The learned trial judge found that the wife was "a working wife", and ran the canteen and the International Airport Restaurant for the husband: accordingly, on the authority of such cases as Nixon v Nixon [1969] 1 WLR 1676 and in Re Cummins [1972] Ch 62, the judge found that the wife was beneficially entitled to a half-share in such businesses. This finding is not challenged by the husband. The wife also ran a small business on her own account at the airport as a "sideline". No. 44 One Tree Hill

This was the first property in issue to be purchased. It was conveyed into the sole name of the wife by a deed dated July 31, 1963. It was the matrimonial home until 1972. The purchase price was $39,360, of which the sum of $19,360 was paid in cash and $20,000 borrowed on mortgage from a bank.

After the breakdown of the marriage the husband and the wife each claimed to be the absolute owner of this house. The husband asserted that he had paid the whole purchase price and paid all the mortgage instalments out of his own money, and that therefore the wife held the house in trust for him absolutely. The wife asserted that she had paid for everything out of her savings from her "sideline" business at the airport. An action was started by the wife against the husband in December 1976 (No. 3999 of 1976) in which the beneficial ownership of the house was put in issue. The trial of this action, and of the other two actions which were heard at the same time, began at the end of 1979 and was concluded in the following year. The findings of the learned trial judge in relation to this house were as follows:-

"I find that the intention of the parties at that time was to purchase this house for the (wife) as the matrimonial home. The probabilities are that the mortgage instalments were paid out of the funds of the International Airport Restaurant and Emerald Room. The (husband) has no documentary evidence to prove that he paid any instalments or anything.

I find that No. 44 One Tree Hill is not held by the (wife) in trust for the (husband) and that it is her property."

The Emerald Room was a restaurant and nightclub which had been opened, some time after the purchase of the matrimonial home, in a part of the Shamrock Hotel. The wife ran the business for the husband. The judge found that she was entitled to an equal share therein. This finding is n