The appellant challenged a finding that though she was named as joint tenant of the property with her mother, she had no beneficial interest in it. The property had formerly been a council house tenanted by the respondent and her late husband.
Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury said: ‘When it comes to assessing the contributions to the purchase price the claimant argues either that no account should be taken of the discount of andpound;29,415 or that it should be attributable equally to both parties. I do not agree. In the absence of authority the position seems to me to be this. The reason the property could be bought at a discount, indeed the reason that the property could be bought at all, was that the defendant had been the secure tenant of the property and had resided there in that capacity for a substantial period; see the sections of the Housing Act 1985 to which I have referred. It was therefore the defendant and solely the defendant to whom the discount of andpound;29,415 could be attributed, a fact which she exercised. Her privilege under section 123 of the 1985 Act to share her statutory right to buy with her daughter does not seem to me in any way to alter that conclusion. Sharing with a third party the right to buy in law as against the council is not the same thing as sharing the consequences of the right to buy in equity as against a third party.’
Judges:
Tuckey, Neuberger, Rimer LJJ
Citations:
[2008] EWCA Civ 347, [2008] 1 WLR 2695, [2008] 2 P and CR 14, [2008] 7 EG 142, [2008] 2 FLR 589, [2008] 21 EG 140, [2008] Fam Law 638, [2008] 2 EGLR 70
Links:
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Richards v Wood CA 27-Feb-2014
The defendants had purchased their council house with financial asistance from their son, the claimant. He now asserted that a trust existed in the property in his favour.
Held: ‘unless there is a secure tenancy the statutory right to buy . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Land, Trusts
Updated: 15 July 2022; Ref: scu.268701
