''Pettitt v Pettitt''
970
Year 970 ( CMLXX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar, the 970th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' designations, the 970th year of the 1st millennium, the 70th yea ...
AC 777 is a leading
English trusts law
English trust law concerns the protection of assets, usually when they are held by one party for another's benefit. Trusts were a creation of the English law of property and obligations, and share a subsequent history with countries across the ...
case, concerning the
presumption of advancement
The presumption of advancement is a legal presumption which arises in various common law jurisdictions in relation to the transfers of money or other property. Broadly, the presumption states that where a husband transfers property to his wife, o ...
and a spouse's equitable interest in the matrimonial home.
Facts
In Pettitt, the wife had used her own money to buy a house during the
marriage, meaning the title to the house had been in the wife's name,
and both she and her husband resided therein until the wife left the husband. The
husband claimed that he had carried out a considerable number of improvements
to the house and garden. These improvements consisted of internal
decoration work, building a wardrobe, laying a lawn and constructing an
ornamental wall and a side wall in the garden. By virtue of these efforts the
husband sought a beneficial interest in the proceeds of sale of the property.
Judgment
In the course of his judgment,
Lord Diplock
William John Kenneth Diplock, Baron Diplock, (8 December 1907 – 14 October 1985) was a British barrister and judge who served as a lord of appeal in ordinary between 1968 and until his death in 1985. Appointed to the English High Court in ...
said,
"It would, in my view, be an abuse of the legal technique for ascertaining or imputing intention to apply to transactions between the post-war generation of married couples "presumptions which are based upon inferences of fact which an earlier generation of judges drew as to the most likely intentions of earlier generations of spouses belonging to the propertied classes of a different social era."
References
See also
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English trusts law
English trust law concerns the protection of assets, usually when they are held by one party for another's benefit. Trusts were a creation of the English law of property and obligations, and share a subsequent history with countries across the ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pettitt V Pettitt
English trusts case law
House of Lords cases
1969 in British law
1969 in case law
English property case law