The court upheld resulting trust principles in property ownership for unmarried cohabitants based on financial contributions.

NH Chan JCA:

In this case it falls on this court to decide on the proportions of the beneficial interests of a man and a woman, who are not married to each other but who have lived together as husband and wife, in the ownership of a house which they have acquired in their joint names. The parties Miss Liew (the plaintiff) who is a well known lawyer in Kuala Lumpur and Mr Fork (the defendant) bought the house jointly with the aid of a housing loan from Bank Bumiputra (M) Berhad for which they were both liable to the bank for its repayment. The loan was secured by a charge to the bank of the property in which they were registered as joint proprietors. Subsequently the outstanding loan for the purchase of the house was repaid with Miss Liew paying off the balance of the loan directly to the bank. There was nothing in the form of an agreement or in the transfer document or in any other place that would indicate how the parties' respective beneficial interests in the property were quantified. In 1989 the personal relationship of the couple faltered and finally it broke down altogether and Mr Fork left. The cause of the breakdown of the relationship is not material for the determination of this case as they were not married to each other. After they fell out, Miss Liew then brought the present proceedings against Mr Fork claiming that she is entitled to have the house as she had substantially paid for it while Mr Fork had only made minimal contributions to its purchase and even on that she claims that Mr Fork had given up his share of it to her. In her statement of claim she also claims for money lent to Mr Fork. The claims are disputed by Mr Fork. Mr Fork counterclaims for the house claiming that he had bought over Miss Liew's share of it but later (at the end of the trial when he was unable to prove that he had paid Miss Liew for the acquisition of her share to the house) his counsel Mr Leong was prepared to accept an aliquot share of the house as representing his contribution to which he had made to the purchase of the house.

The Law

The principle of law that I invoke in this case, and for this I quote Dillon LJ in Springette v. Defoe [1992] 2 FLR 388, at 391, "is the age old principle that if two (or more) persons purchase property in their joint names and there has been no declaration of trusts on which they are to hold the property, they will, as a matter of law in the absence of evidence to the contrary, hold the property on a resulting trust for the persons who provided the purchase money in the proportions in which they provided it: see Dyer v. Dyer [1788] 2 Cox Eq. Cas. 92 and the speech of Lord Upjohn in Pettit v. Pettit [1970] AC 777 at p. 814."

In Pettit v. Pettit [1970] AC 777, at 814 Lord Upjohn said this:

It is far more likely to be solved by the doctrine of resulting trust, namely, that in the absence of evidence to the contrary if the property be conveyed into the name of a stranger he will hold it as trustee for the person putting up the purchase money and if the purchase money has been provided by two or more persons the property is held for those persons in proportion to the purchase money that they have provided.

My Lords, all this is trite law but I make no apology for citing the judgment of Eyre CB in 1788 in the leading case of Dyer v. Dyer [1788] 2 Cox, Eq. Cas. 92, 93, 94, set out in full in White and Tudor's Leading Cases in Equity, 9th ed. [1928], Vol. 2, 749:

The clear result of all the cases, without a single exception, is that the trust of a legal estate, whether freehold, copyhold, or leasehold: whether taken in the names of the purchasers and others jointly, or in the names of others without that of the purchaser; whether in one name or several; whether jointly or successive - results to the man who advances the purchase-money. This is a general proposition, supported by all the cases, and there is nothing to contradict it; and it goes on a strict analogy to the rule of the common