Writing in NLJ this week, Laura Tanguay, partner and head of home ownership disputes at Birketts LLP, examines Uddin v Uddin, where two brothers disagreed over ownership of a family home following an alleged oral agreement. One brother claimed the other had agreed to relinquish his beneficial interest in return for abandoning a financial claim linked to the property. Although the lower court accepted that a new constructive trust had arisen, the High Court overturned the ruling, stressing that a ‘shared intention, without more, is insufficient’.
Tanguay explains that anyone relying on an informal arrangement must prove ‘detrimental reliance’—that they acted, or refrained from acting, in a way that left them materially worse off. The judgment, she says, is a ‘clear reminder’ that oral agreements alone rarely displace formal property ownership unless supported by strong evidence.
