Tajleena Islam v Sultana Jahan Islam & Ors

Persuasion is not unlawful merely because it influences a person’s decision. It becomes undue influence when the transaction cannot fairly be treated as the expression of the person’s free will. A finding that a party made an independent assessment of her interests and acted freely is primarily a finding of fact, with which an appellate court will interfere only rarely. A transaction may be to a person’s benefit overall while another transaction remains potentially disadvantageous. However, undue influence is not established where the transaction is not so disadvantageous that it can only be explained by improper influence.

The claimant sought permission to appeal findings concerning deeds executed in 2016 and an August 2006 deed. The proposed appeal challenged the conclusions that the 2016 deeds were entered into freely and that the August 2006 deed was not sufficiently disadvantageous to support a finding of undue influence.

The court also observed that the validity of the August 2006 deed had become academic if the 2016 deeds were valid. The application required consideration of whether either proposed ground had a real prospect of success.

1. 2016 deeds. Persuasion becomes undue influence only when the transaction cannot fairly be regarded as the expression of the person’s free will. The court had found no significant relationship of ascendancy and had found that the claimant independently decided that entering into the deeds was in her interests because she wished to protect assets from her husband. That conclusion was essentially factual, and the Court of Appeal would not lightly interfere with it.
2. August 2006 deed. The fact that a series of transactions may benefit a person does not prevent one transaction within that series from being to her manifest disadvantage. Nevertheless, on the facts, the deed was not so disadvantageous that it could only be explained by the use of improper influence. The finding that there was no undue influence was again essentially factual.
3. The proposed challenges therefore had no real prospect of success. Permission to appeal was refused. The issue concerning the August 2006 deed was in any event academic if the 2016 deeds were valid.

The judgment concerns the claimant’s application for permission to appeal from the court’s findings on the 2016 deeds and the August 2006 deed. Permission to appeal was refused.