References: [1854] EngR 230, (1854) Kay 341, (1854) 69 ER 145
Links: Commonlii
A man cannot have two domicils, at least with reference to the succession to his personal estate.
Legitimate children acquire by birth the domicil of their father.
An infant cannot change his domicil by his own act.
A new domicil cannot be acquired except by intention and act; but, being in itinere to the intended domicil, is a sufficient act for this purpose.
But the strongest intention of abandoning a domicil, and actual abandonment of residence, will not deprive a man of that domicil, unless he has acquired another.
An engagement to serve, and actual service in the Indian Army, under a commission from the East India Company, when the duties of such an appointment necessarily require residence in India for an indefinite period, confers upon the officer an Anglo-Indian domicil ; for the law, in such a case, presumes an intention consistent with his duty, and holds his residence to be animo et facto in India. And this, even if he have property in the country which was his domicil of origin.
An Anglo-Indian is not, for all purposes, an English domicil.
A domiciled Scotchman, having ancestral property but no house in his native country, by accepting a commission, and serving in the Indian Army, abandoned his domicil of origin, and acquired an Anglo-Indian domicil. He afterwards attained the rank of general in the Indian Army, and was made colonel of a regiment, and then left India with the intention of not returning thither, but came to Great Britain, where he lived part of the year in a house which he had built on his estate in Scotland, and part in a hired house in London, under circumstances which, if he had been a single man, would have given him again a Scotch domicil; but his wife and establishment of servants resided constantly at the house in London. Held, that this fact counterbalanced the effect of the other circumstances, and proved that his intention was permanently to reside in England ; and that, therefore, he must be considered to have abandoned his acquired domicil in India, and acquired, by choice, a new one in England.
This case is cited by:
- Cited – Holliday and Another -v- Musa and Others CA ([2010] 2 FLR 702, Bailii, [2010] EWCA Civ 335, [2010] Fam Law 702, [2010] WTLR 839)
The adult children of the deceased appealed against a finding that their father had died domiciled in the UK, and allowing an application under the 1975 Act. He had a domicile of origin in Cyprus but had lived in England since 1958. . .