Court rules on property rights for unmarried couples

Published 09th Nov 2011

Judgment giving 90% of house to woman who paid mortgage for 13 years has implications for millions of unmarried couples


The property rights of millions of unmarried couples who split up have been clarified by a supreme court judgment that has awarded the overwhelming share of a bungalow in Essex to the woman.

The long-awaited decision in the case of Kernott v Jones makes it clear that even though the home was registered in the names of both the man and the woman, judges are permitted to substitute a fairer division of possessions.

The supreme court had been asked whether the assets should be shared 50/50 or predominantly awarded to the woman who alone has paid the mortgage for the past 13 years.

Leonard Kernott and Patricia Jones, separated in 1993 after living together in the property in Thundersley, Essex, for eight years. The fate of their bungalow has been eagerly followed by family lawyers and will set a benchmark for the 2 million unmarried couples living together in England and Wales.

Kernott, 51, an ice cream salesman, moved out after the breakup, leaving Jones, 56, to pay the mortgage, maintain the house – valued at £240,000 in 2008 – and bring up the couple's two children, the court was told.

The court heard that Kernott, now of Benfleet, Essex, had waited until his children were grown before making a claim on his old home in 2006. In 2008, a county court judge sitting in Southend ruled that Jones should get 90% of the value of the house and her former partner 10%. That decision was upheld by the high court in London in 2009.

Last year, the court of appeal overturned the lower courts' rulings, deciding that Kernott was entitled to half the value of the house because the couple owned equal shares when they separated and neither had since done anything to change the situation.

Lawyers for Jones have now succeeded in overturning the appeal court decision. The judges wrestled with what constituted fairness, acknowledging that different couples had different ideas of what constituted a just division of their shared possessions.

In restoring the county court order for sharing the assets, the five justices unanimously allowed the appeal. Lord Walker and Lady Hale said it was a "… logical inference that [the couple] intended [Mr Kernott's] interest in Badger Hall Avenue should crystallise" in 1995, when they took the house off the market, cashed in an insurance policy, so that Kernott was able to buy a house in his own name.

The presumption of joint beneficial ownership could be rebutted by evidence that it was not, or ceased to be, the common intention of the parties to hold the property jointly.

Lord Wilson added: "In the light of the continued failure of parliament to confer upon the courts limited redistributive powers in relation to the property of each party upon the breakdown of a non-marital relationship, I warmly applaud [this] development of the law of equity."

Source: ' Guardian '

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