Presuming Too Little About Resulting and Constructive Trusts?

Abstract

It will be an all too obvious truth to readers of this journal that the law on implied trusts as it applies to the acquisition and quantification of interests in real property has undergone a period of considerable change and uncertainty over the last decade, and many questions and confusions remain. One principle had, however, seemed to emerge relatively clearly from the dicta in $\textit{Stack v Dowden}$,$^1$ $\textit{Laskar v Laskar}^2$ and $\textit{Jones v Kernott}^3$ : the starting presumptions identified by Lady Hale in $\textit{Stack}$ applied to domestic cases, broadly stated, but the presumption of a resulting trust was more appropriate where the purchase was for commercial purposes. If this approach was ever correct, it is no longer the case following the decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in $\textit{Marr v Collie}$.