Tackaberry & Anor v Hollis & Ors

Where land is acquired in one person’s sole name, a claimant seeking a beneficial interest must prove an express or inferred agreement that ownership was to be shared. The court applies the ordinary law of trusts; there is no general concept of family property. An inferred intention must be objectively deduced from the parties’ acts and statements. It cannot be imputed by asking what they would have intended. Contributions, loans, occupation and family use are evidential matters, but none is conclusive. A loan secured on property does not, without more, give the lender a beneficial interest. The claimant must also show detriment referable to the relevant agreement or intention. On the evidence, no sufficiently certain beneficial class, common intention or referable detriment was established.

The claim concerned a property acquired in 1930 in Anthony Tackaberry’s sole name. His nephews, acting for estates of members of the Tackaberry family, alleged that he had acquired and held the property on trust for specified siblings or their surviving estates. The first defendant, Anthony’s executor, contended that Anthony had been the sole beneficial owner and had merely intended to benefit relatives by gifts or testamentary dispositions.

The central issues were whether a constructive trust arose on acquisition or subsequently, whether the alleged beneficiaries could be identified with sufficient certainty, and whether the family’s conduct established a common intention supported by detriment.

1. Claim dismissed. The claimants failed to prove that Anthony held the property on either of the alleged trusts.
2. Where property is acquired in one person’s sole name, the non-acquiring parties bear the burden of proving an express or inferred agreement that the beneficial ownership was to be shared. The court applied the approach in Stack v Dowden [2007] UKHL 17 and Grant v Edwards [1986] 1 Ch 638.
3. The law recognises no concept of family property arising merely from family life or occupation. The inquiry is governed by ordinary trust principles. An intention may be inferred objectively from conduct and statements, but cannot be imputed by asking what the parties would have intended.
4. The contemporaneous documents showed that Anthony provided the purchase price through his own funds and secured borrowings. The family advances were loans at interest secured on the property. Applying re Sharpe (a bankrupt) [1980] 1 WLR 219, loans were not contributions conferring beneficial interests without more.
5. The later correspondence and testamentary documents did not establish the alleged 1930 trust. They varied as to which relatives were to benefit, repeatedly omitted or included different siblings, and were more consistent with intended gifts or bequests by Anthony. The proposed beneficial class was therefore uncertain.
6. No sibling had shown detriment referable to an agreement or understanding that they would acquire an interest. The case was materially different from Gillett v Holt [2001] Ch 210, where detriment was incurred in reliance on a representation.
7. These findings made it unnecessary to decide the alternative legal argument concerning whether the alleged co-ownership trust was a form of co-ownership unknown to English law.