DOO v DOP

Facts

The claimant and the defendant, both French citizens and Singapore Permanent Residents, were in a romantic relationship from 2005 to 2018 and lived together from 2006 to 2019. They never married but had two children born in Singapore. In December 2011 they bought a condominium flat as joint tenants for $1.65m, financed by a joint bank loan of $1.32m. The defendant paid almost all the upfront costs. The parties shared the monthly mortgage repayments equally until 2018, when the claimant was retrenched; after that the defendant paid alone.

On 26 September 2024 the claimant applied in Originating Application No 997 of 2024 for the flat to be sold and the net proceeds divided equally. The defendant counterclaimed for a declaration that the beneficial interest was held 16.3:83.7 in line with what he said were their financial contributions, and for the claimant's share to be sold to him. The claimant relied on a passage in the defendant's affidavit in family proceedings in Paris, the joint tenancy, the equal mortgage payments, an unsigned draft will and the family nature of their relationship. The defendant said the affidavit passage concerned shared family expenses, that the parties were co-parents who kept their own assets, and that he had paid the bulk of the upfront costs.

Issues

1. Whether the parties had a common intention at the time of purchase to hold the flat in equal shares.
2. Whether the claimant relied on that common intention to her detriment so that a common intention constructive trust arose.
3. Whether a presumption of resulting trust in proportion to financial contributions applied instead.
4. Whether the defendant was entitled to an equitable accounting for the mortgage repayments he made alone.

Holding

The High Court allowed the claimant's application in part. It held that the flat was held on a common intention constructive trust for the parties in equal shares, rejecting the defendant's proportional claim, but ordered the claimant to reimburse the defendant $141,906.50 from the net sale proceeds, being half of the mortgage instalments he paid from 2 January 2019 to 1 October 2024, plus her share of later repayments. The defendant was given sole conduct of the sale and the first option to buy the claimant's interest; sale costs were to be shared equally, the sale was to be completed within three months, and each party bore its own costs.

Reasoning

Common intention was the first consideration. The joint tenancy and joint mortgage alone did not prove an intention to share equally during the parties' lives. But the claimant's equal mortgage payments for the first six years, stopping only on her retrenchment, strongly indicated an intention at purchase to hold the flat equally, and it did not matter that the money passed through the defendant's account. His larger upfront payment was understandable given her much lower income and their long relationship. There was no evidence of an agreement for proportionate ownership; the parties were romantic partners running a household, not business co-investors. The court gave little weight to the alleged will, finding insufficient evidence of it.

On detrimental reliance, the court found no proof that money the defendant held back from the claimant went to the mortgage, nor of her claimed renovation and taxi outlays. It accepted, however, that her receipts showed she paid for maintenance, utilities and repairs between April 2019 and May 2022, after the relationship ended, and treated those payments as detrimental reliance. A common intention constructive trust in equal shares therefore arose, with no later common intention to vary it.

Because common intention was proved, no presumption of resulting trust arose. In any event, under Lau Siew Kim mortgage instalments are not in themselves direct contributions to the purchase price, and the shares are fixed at acquisition.

On equitable accounting, the court accepted that the defendant took on the mortgage for six months after the claimant lost her job in mid-2018 without expecting repayment, as they were still a family. After the December 2018 breakup that changed; his email of 1 August 2019 said the payments were not gifts. It would be inequitable for the claimant to keep her half share without reimbursing his excess payments from January 2019.

From the judgment