The Supreme Court gave Judgment on the 9 November 2011 in the case of Jones –v- Kernott involving a couple who had lived together but not married and had purchased a house in joint names. Lady Hale, giving the leading judgment, confirmed that the starting point for the division of shares in such a property would be an equal division where that mirrored the legal ownership. The case confirmed that it is possible to argue that the shares on a sale should not be equal but that the “task of showing this should not be embarked upon lightly”. An unequal contribution to the initial purchase price was not necessarily enough to show that shares on sale should be divided unequally.
The case concerned a couple who had met in 1980 and purchased a property together in 1985. They separated in October 1993 and in 1995 agreed to take the jointly owned property off the market as they had not been able to sell it. At that time Mr Kernott (an ice-cream salesman) was able to purchase a separate property when he and Miss Jones cashed in a joint endowment policy. On the particular facts of this case the Supreme Court found that that purchase of a new property was enough to show that their intentions had changed in 1995 and that Mr Kernott should only be entitled, on that basis, to half of the value at that time. As a result of the increase in value of properties between 1995 and the date that the case came to Court, the 50% which amounted to £30,000 in 1995 was equivalent to only 10% of the net current value of the property.
The Supreme Court emphasised, again, that this case was decided on its particular facts and where couples are buying property in joint names, entering into a Declaration of Trust, either at the time of purchase or at the time of separation, would have prevented years of litigation and considerable cost.