''Burns v Burns''

984 Year 984 ( CMLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * Spring – German boy-king Otto III (4-years old) is seized by the deposed Henry II ...

Ch 317,

All ER The All England Law Reports (abbreviated in citations to All ER) are a long-running series of law reports covering cases from the court system in England and Wales. Established in 1936, the All England Law Reports are a commercially produced alt ...

244) is a case in

English property law English property law refers to the law of acquisition, sharing and protection of valuable assets in England and Wales. While part of the United Kingdom, many elements of Scots property law are different. In England, property law encompasses four ...

dealing with the beneficial

entitlement An entitlement is a provision made in accordance with a legal framework of a society. Typically, entitlements are based on concepts of principle ("rights") which are themselves based in concepts of social equality or enfranchisement. In psycholo ...

s of unmarried cohabittees.

Facts

The

plaintiff A plaintiff ( Π in legal shorthand) is the party who initiates a lawsuit (also known as an ''action'') before a court. By doing so, the plaintiff seeks a legal remedy. If this search is successful, the court will issue judgment in favor of the p ...

, Valerie Burns, lived with the

defendant In court proceedings, a defendant is a person or object who is the party either accused of committing a crime in criminal prosecution or against whom some type of civil relief is being sought in a civil case. Terminology varies from one jurisdic ...

for 19 years, Patrick Burns, whom she never married. The house had been bought in the name of the defendant who also paid the purchase price with the plaintiff making no financial contributions to the purchase price or

mortgage A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law jurisdicions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners to raise funds for any pu ...

installments and had acted as a

homemaker Homemaking is mainly an American and Canadian term for the management of a home, otherwise known as housework, housekeeping, housewifery or household management. It is the act of overseeing the organizational, day-to-day operations of a hous ...

performing domestic duties.Full text of opinion
She had however made financial contributions to the household with regards to household bills and redecorating.

Judgment

The judgment of the case was that in the absence of a financial contribution which could be related to the acquisition to the property such as mortgage installments there is no right to a beneficial entitlement to a family home. This decision was affirmed by the Lords Justice Waller,

Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

and

May May is the fifth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and is the third of seven months to have a length of 31 days. May is a month of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. Therefore, May ...

in the

Court of Appeal A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of t ...

Notes

References

*J Herring et al., ''

Landmark Cases in Family Law {{italic title ''Landmark Cases in Family Law'' (2011) is a book of chapters contributed by various authors, which outlines the key cases in English family law. Content The cases discussed are, *'' The Roos case'' (1670): Rebecca Probert, Associa ...

'' (2011) English property case law 1984 in England Court of Appeal (England and Wales) cases English family case law 1984 in United Kingdom case law {{case-law-stub