Ong v Lottwo Pty Ltd (in liq)

The appeal concerned an application by the appellants to be joined as plaintiffs in actions where surplus funds, remaining after the exercise of a bank's mortgagee's powers of sale over properties, had been paid into court. The original purchasers had defaulted on loans used to acquire these properties. A Master had granted the appellants' application for joinder, but a single Judge subsequently refused it. The appeal to the Full Court of the Supreme Court of South Australia was against this refusal.

The central legal issues before the Full Court were whether each of the appellants possessed an arguable claim to a proprietary interest in the money held in court, and whether their pleadings sufficiently articulated a claim to a resulting trust arising from their alleged contributions to the purchase price of the properties.

The Full Court allowed the appeal, restoring the Master's orders for joinder. The Court reasoned that each appellant had sufficiently pleaded a claim to a proprietary interest based on a resulting trust. This conclusion was reached by assessing the pleadings and finding that they disclosed an arguable case for the existence of such a trust, thereby justifying their joinder as plaintiffs in the proceedings to determine their entitlement to the surplus funds.