David John Jones v Haulwen Griffiths & Anor

In a claim for unjust enrichment arising from services provided to improve property, the claimant must establish a proper unjust factor. Where the claim is based on free acceptance, the claimant must show that he expected payment and that the defendant, as a reasonable person, should have known of that expectation. Knowledge of some works does not amount to acceptance of all works.

The value of any enrichment is fact-sensitive. The market value of services may be a starting point, but where services were not requested, the relevant benefit may instead be the end product or any increase in the property’s value. The court is not bound to value the claim by reference to the cost of the works.

The appellant appealed against HHJ Jarman KC’s dismissal of claims concerning a property owned by his mother and half-brother. Permission was limited to the dismissal of his unjust enrichment claim against his half-brother for renovation and improvement works carried out while the appellant and his family occupied the property.

The appellant argued that the judge had failed to apply the four-stage enquiry identified in Benedetti v Sawiris and had adopted the wrong measure of enrichment by failing to value the services at their open market value. The appeal concerned whether the findings of fact established an unjust factor, whether the second respondent had freely accepted the works, and how any benefit should be valued.

1. Appeal dismissed. The judge’s findings provided a proper basis for dismissing the unjust enrichment claim concerning the works.
2. The four questions identified in Benedetti v Sawiris are broad headings and not themselves legal tests. They are signposts towards distinct legal requirements. A claim must rest on a proper factual basis and cannot simply reproduce a failed proprietary estoppel case.
3. The claim was not based on failure of basis, because there was no conditional understanding governing the works. Nor was mistake relied on as vitiating the appellant’s consent. The only possible unjust factor was free acceptance.
4. Free acceptance requires the defendant, viewed as a reasonable person, to have known that the claimant expected payment and then to have failed to take a reasonable opportunity to reject the services. The trial judge found that the appellant carried out the works for the convenience and tastes of his family while living at the property. There was no finding that he expected payment. The necessary threshold was therefore not met.
5. The second respondent’s limited knowledge of the works would in any event have been insufficient to establish acceptance of all the works. Awareness of re-rendering and building noise did not fix him with acceptance of every improvement. No de minimis principle required that conclusion.
6. The court observed that, where free acceptance is established, the market value of services may be the starting point. But valuation is fact-specific. In an unrequested-services case, the relevant benefit may be the end product or any uplift in the property’s value. The absence of evidence of any uplift justified the judge’s conclusion on the evidence before him.
7. Had the appeal succeeded, the second respondent would, as a joint owner, have been liable for the whole restitutionary remedy as against the appellant.

• High Court (King’s Bench Division): appeal from the order of HHJ Jarman KC in the Caernarfon County Court. Permission was limited to the unjust enrichment claim against the second respondent concerning works to the property. Appeal dismissed.