Students

Moot Question 1

In the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom

Hill v Renais

1. Jacquie Hill and Simon Renais met at a party in 1997, and when their son, Harry, was born in 1998, they decided to buy a property together. They found an end-of-terrace house, 8 Brook Lane, which was for sale at £195,000. Simon sold his flat and contributed £60,000 to the purchase price; the balance was raised by a mortgage. They agreed that Jacquie should give up her job as a chef at a local restaurant so that she could look after Harry. Simon told Jacquie that although it would be their house, he thought it best if legal title to 8 Brook Lane was in his name, simply because he would be paying the mortgage and it made the paperwork easier. Simon was an engineer with a large international company with interests in East Africa and the Far East. As far as Jacquie was concerned, Simon was secretive about his actual earnings, but she acknowledged that he received a good salary which he used to pay the mortgage, the household bills and an allowance to Jacquie to cover her expenses. In 1999, twin girls were born, and following Simon's promotion to head of his department, he and Jacquie decided to buy a larger family home.
2. In 2000, they sold 8 Brook Lane for £365,000, making a profit of £170,000, and purchased a detached house, Pendrells, in the village of Hamfeld for £550,000. The purchase price was paid for with the profit of £170,000 and the balance was raised by a mortgage. Once again, and for the same reason as before, Simon persuaded Jacquie that legal title to Pendrells should be in his sole name.
3. Simon's new role as head of department meant that he was required to travel to Dar es Salaam and Nairobi for several months during the year, and he relied on Jacquie to keep the house and large garden going single-handed and to care for the three young children. Simon's new job also involved entertaining clients from Tanzania, Kenya and the Far East. Jacquie's skill as a chef was particularly useful and she spent many unpaid hours each day cooking and catering for Simon's clients.
4. In 2010, Jacquie's widowed mother died, leaving Jacquie and Jacquie's brother, John, £200,000 to be divided between them in equal shares. Simon had long been talking about a loft conversion to provide two extra bedrooms for their frequent guests and told Jacquie that he had received a quotation that this would cost £100,000. Jacquie agreed that her inheritance should be used for this building work.
5. In 2014, Jacquie discovered that Simon had been having an affair with one of his colleagues and that the loft conversion had cost only £80,000, the remaining £20,000 having been spent by Simon on holidays with his lover, which Jacquie had been led to believe were business trips. When Jacquie said that she wished to separate and wanted her share in the home, Simon argued that the house belonged to him alone.
6. In the High Court, Blakeney J, applying Lloyds Bank v Rosset [1991] 1 AC 107, held that as there was no evidence of an express understanding between the parties of a common intention to share the beneficial interest in the property, Miss Hill could not rely on an express common intention constructive trust to claim an interest in the property. Nor was it possible to infer a constructive trust as Miss Hill had made no direct contribution to the purchase price. Neither an express trust nor a resulting trust was appropriate given the facts of the case. Accordingly, Mr Renais was the sole beneficial owner.
7. The Court of Appeal upheld the decision of Blakeney J. Miss Hill appealed to the Supreme Court on the following grounds:
   1. That the decision in Lloyds Bank v Rosset had been misinterpreted by the lower courts regarding the acquisition of a beneficial interest by Miss Hill;
   2. That, in the alternative, the decision in Lloyds Bank v Rosset was no longer good authority in sole legal owner cases and that the common intention to share the beneficial interest should be deduced objectively from the parties' conduct;
   3. That, regarding quantification, the parties' common intention was that they had an equal share in the beneficial interest.