Well stacked

In what amounts to a judicial equivalent of a drunken karaoke spin through Abba’s back catalogue, the House of Lords has performed its recital of the greatest hits of property law and delivered its speeches in Stack v Dowden [2007] UKHL 17 .

Stack and Dowden were long term unmarried co-habitees, who split after 18 years. The family home was registered in joint names. Stack had contributed less to the purchase monies and servicing of the mortgage etc., but, and in the absence of any formal agreement between the parties, claimed he was beneficially entitled to an equal share in the property. Perhaps, not unsurprisingly given the soon to be published findings of the Law Commission on the law and co-habitees, the Lords declined the opportunity to develop the law, rested on existing principles and found Stack was not entitled to an equal share. (At first blush, along the way, Oxley seems possibly to have received a well deserved kicking, but that might just be wishful thinking.)

What is the practical application of the judgment ? The house concerned was worth £750K and the legal costs will have been out of all proportion relative to that sum; one can only guess, but £250K would not be an unreasonable estimate and a just tad more than, say, the £1,000 it would cost for a basic tenancy in common agreement to have been drawn up when the property was bought.

So, the next time an unmarried couple tell me they don’t want to bother, I will force them to read the judgment (the writer is a self confessed saddo with an unhealthy interest in equity and even I got a headache reading the judgment) and, if that fails, I might resort simply to beating them about the head with all 58 pages.