Legal Estate Ownership under English Law - Case Study Example

 Property Law: Deborah v Charles Part A(i): Legal and Equitable Interests in Greengables In English law, the actual possession and matrimonial home trust regulations were developed to make sure that equity prevails in cases of prejudice provided some given standards were met. This section of the article will examine these standards and demonstrate the way this suits the clients Deborah and Charles. To begin with, we shall look at the legal and equitable interests that are currently being held by both Charles and Deborah in the property, Greengables. Initially, the fact that the freehold property, Sunrise Lodge, was passed to Barbara’s husband’s name alone in marriage makes this situation meet the standards of a family home. Besides, in law the husband and wife scenario brings about the presumption of a resulting trust. However, according to the obiter of Lord Diplock in the case of petit v petit, he articulated that the resulting trust presupposition is obsolete. This view appears to be the case in regard to the Court of Appeal’s ruling in regard to Barbara’s husband, given that there is no appropriate evidence to demonstrate that this opinion can not be refuted by Barbara as would be illustrated by this application. As an alternative, the Court of Appeal has formed a prejudiced state of affairs for Barbara’s husband in regard to his position as a husband and not permitting this plead would be a violation of his human rights laid down in the European Court of Human Rights as integrated by the Human Rights Act 1998 to a just trial Article 6(1) as well as discrimination in Article 14. Barbara’s husband made a full payment for the purchase of Sunrise Lodge. This creates a scenario where he is regarded as the sole owner of Sunrise Lodge. Nevertheless, as Barbara then contributed 30% to the overall total cost makes it legally acceptable for the couples to be considered as tenants in common in regard to the given purchase money. Moreover, by the virtue of providing money to the mortgage, Barbara’s intention meets the basic principle of equity whereby the resulting trust would be presumed. Eventually, Albert sold off Sunrise Lodge and used the proceeds to make a full purchase of another freehold property, Greengables of which the legal title was placed into the joint names of Albert, Barbara and Charles. The registration of the property under the names of all the three parties gives rise to joint tenancy of both the legal and equitable estates. The position at this stage was that both the equitable and the legal estates were held jointly by Albert, Barbara and Charles for he had attained the age of majority. This implies that all the parties held an undivided and complete interest in the property. Besides, all the co holders are regarded as a solitary collective holder and the interest in property in joint tenancy can not be passed in a will. In the event one of the equitable owners passes on, the right of survivorship shall automatically function to bestow the deceased’s interest in the property to the surviving joint tenants. Even though at the present time joint tenancy within an equitable estate is not limited by the number of tenants, the law permits the legal estate to have an upper limit of only four joint tenants. This though, would not pose any problem at this point since only three individuals have an interest in the legal Greengables property that is, before Barbara passed on. Thus, when Barbara died in 2007 leaving all her property to Charles, the position was that her equitable interest could not be passed by intestacy or will to Charles because both of them were joint tenants. Instead her equitable interest was automatically passed to both Albert and Charles as surviving joint tenants. On the other hand, on the basis of joint tenancy, Barbara’s legal interest was as well passed automatically to the remaining joint tenants, Albert and Charles. Therefore, both the legal and equitable estates were held jointly by both Albert and Charles as the joint tenants. This is so because when Barbara allocated her interest in property to Charles through a will, it did not function as a severance of the joint tenancy through alienation since both Barbara and Charles were joint tenants. Any division of an officially authorized joint tenancy is prohibited by section 36(2) of the Lasting Power of Attorney 1925. When Albert married Deborah in 2008, the position was that both the equitable estate and the legal estate were held jointly by Albert and Charles. At this point, the maximum number of joint tenants of the legal estate was still not exceeded in view of the fact that no interest had been assigned to both Deborah and Edward. In addition, Edward was not in a position to own a legal estate for he was only five years old therefore considered legally as a child. There was no change in ownership of the title of the property in 2009 when Albert offered to pay a sum of money to Charles in return for which the property was to be conveyed into Albert’s sole name. This is because though initially Charles had accepted the offer, he changed his mind before the figure for the deal was finalised. After the death of Albert and all his property having being left to Deborah as per his will, the position at this point was that through the right of survivorship of the joint tenancy the entire legal estate was passed to Charles as the only surviving joint tenant. On the other hand, when Albert allocated his interest in the property to Deborah, it acted as a severance of the joint tenancy by means of alienation. This implies that at this juncture a half of the equitable estate was held by Deborah as a tenant in common while the remaining half was held by Charles as the sole joint tenant. Part A (ii) Deborah can not force the sale of the property Now, Charles holds the legal estate and a half of the equitable estate and Deborah holds the remaining half. This implies that Charles is holding the property on a trust of land for himself and Deborah, thus he must consider Deborah’s interest before making any decision that can have an impact on the title of the property. A trust always have beneficiaries and being a trustee Charles is obliged to serve in the best interests of these beneficiaries, in this case himself and Deborah. The decision of a trustee should be determined by the desires of the majority in worth of the property whenever there is a disagreement between the beneficiaries of the trust. Thus, in this case Charles is legally competent to continue living in the property since he holds the majority of the value in Greengables. On the other hand Deborah’s wishes to have the property sold can not have a legal effect since she does not hold majority of the value. Part B: Research methods, strategy and sources This section will deal with the explanation of the research method that was applied in order to arrive at the decision made concerning the case involving Deborah and Charles. After a careful review of various techniques, the research narrowed down to the qualitative research method because subject matter required a textural data. Other research methods such as the quantitative and the mixed were not considered for this research since the nature of the case did not involve numerical data. Qualitative research method may be defined as an unfolding model which takes place in an ordinary situation that makes it possible for the researcher to gather some detailed information from high participation in the real experiences. 1 The social fact that is being examined from the researcher’s perspective which in this case is the equitable and legal estates forms the basis of the classification of a qualitative research. Qualitative research procedures are used to outline the research methods by various distinct research designs. Qualitative research approach comprises of five distinct areas of study, namely the grounded theory study, case study, phenomenological study, content analysis and ethnography study. All this areas of study represents a research that is based on inductive way of thinking and related methods. A reasonable utilisation of explanation, description and interpretation of the gathered data becomes the constituent of a qualitative research. It is claimed that the fact that qualitative research is instrumental in building and inventing new rules makes its description aspects to be less structured.2 The assertions of qualitative research are based on inductive as opposed to deductive way of thinking. The subject matter that the researcher seeks to address is normally derived from a given observational aspects. According to Leedy and Ormrod, 2001, under this research method truth has no starting point or some recognized hypotheses that may form a starting point for the researcher.3 A research strategy may be defined as an action plan that is designed to direct ones efforts so that research is conducted systematically. A proper research strategy is essential because without its application research may be performed haphazardly. In this case the research question which concerned legal and equitable estate had already been suggested. I made sure that the subject matter of the research was properly understood then immediately I began to search for additional information through following the pieces of writing. Furthermore, I trailed the publications recorded as references in the bibliographies of articles to get extra information needed and books both in the offline and online libraries. Furthermore, I also explored electronic resources by searching various links. In research sources are very critical and one needs to be very strategic in obtaining them. One of the approaches I employed was to track subject keywords and headings, references and valuable footnotes that I came across as I progressed. In the course of the research, I ensured that at every stage the source material was evaluated to ensure that it was relevant in addressing the subject of research. Another element of strategy that I applied in my research was that I made sure that I obtained all the background information regarding the case. This was done by ensuring familiarisation of the vocabulary, major concepts and ideas that relates to the case. The importance of this background information is that it positions the subject matter of the research in a broad perspective. These gave me comfort and in depth understanding in getting the facts for this case. To ensure that adequate information is collected for the purpose of preparation of the bibliography, I noted the date and publication information including the publisher, author, URL and titles of articles. References 1. Hipp, Jonathan w (2008-11-28). “What You Need to Know to Invest in single-tenant.Net-leased Properties” 2. Real Estate and Mortgage Glossary/Definitions-terms beginning with “R” Real estate ABC. Web 10 Aug 2009 3. Jeremy Waldron, 1998. The Right to Private Property. Oxford Univ. Press 4. Robert Cooter and Thomas Ujen. 2003. Law and economics, 4th.Ed. Addison-Wesley. 5. Ackerman, B., R. Ellickson and C.M. Rose, 2002. Perspectives on Property Law, 3rd ed. Aspen Law and Business 6. Ellickson, Robert, 1993, “Property in Land,” Yale Law Review 7. Richard Epstein, ed., 2007, Economics of Property Law. Edward Elgar. 8. Benson, Marjorie L., Marie-Ann Bowden & Dwight Newman. Understanding Property: A Guide to Canada’s Property Law, 2d ed. (Toronto: Thomson Carswell, 2008). KB 170 B474 2008 9. La Forest, Anne W. Anger and Honsberger: Law of Real Property, 3d ed., looseleaf (Aurora, Ont.: Canada Law Book, 2006). KB 170 A587 2006 10. Ziff, Bruce. Principles of Property Law, 4th ed. (Toronto: Thomson Carswell, 2006). KB 170 Z68 2006 Books 11. Walker, Timothy and J. B. Walker, 1869. Introduction to American Law 12. Watkins, Charles and H. H. White, 1838. The Principles of Conveying 13. Taylor, John N., 1844. A Treatise on the American Law of Landlord and Tenant 14. Blackstone, Sir William, E. Christian and J. Chitty, 1832. Commentaries on the Laws of England 15. Gilmore, Eugene A. and W. C. Wermuth, 1914. Modern American Law 16. Lockwood, Ralph. Reversed Cases in Law and Equity(New York, 1848) 17. Bacon, Mathews, J. Sayer and O. Ruffhead, 1973. A new Abridgment of the Law 18. Roper, Roper S. D. and H. H. White, 1829. A Treatise on the Law of Legacies 19. Woodfall, William, 1816. The Law of Landlord and Tenant 20. Crabb, George, 1846. The Law of Property in its Present State Cases 1. Brickwood v Young, (1905) 2. Petit v Petit Read More