Fattal v Fattal [2022] EHWC 950 (Ch)22 April 2022
Published: 04/05/2022 09:00
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2022/950.html
Deputy Master Hansen.
The claimant bought a property in 1972. In 1990 he transferred it to his brother, the defendant, in the mistaken belief that the latter had paid him £400,000. Although the brothers lived there together, the judge found no common intention to share the property arising either at the time or later, nor, as there was no £400,000 payment made, any detrimental reliance on the defendant’s part. Neither party argued that the transfer had been a gift.
As he knew that he had not paid the claimant, equity acted on the defendant’s conscience) so that he held the property on constructive trust for the claimant: Westdeutsche [1996] UKHL 12 as applied first in this context in the first instance decision Ali v Dinc [2020] EWHC 3055 (Ch) at [222], viz., that ‘a personal obligation to make restitution of asset received under a void contract was rendered proprietary once the defendant was on notice that the assets were not to be treated as the respondent’s own’. The claimant was also entitled to rescind the voluntary transfer as it was the result of mistake as to payment (Pitt v Holt [2013] UKSC 26).
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