Whitlock & Anor v Moree (Bahamas)

Michaelmas Term

[2017] UKPC 44

Privy Council Appeal No 0075 of 2016

LORD BRIGGS: (with whom Lady Hale and Lord Sumption agree)

1.                  This appeal from the Court of Appeal of the Bahamas is about the beneficial ownership of money held on joint account at a bank. The account holders were Mr Francis Lennard until his death in February 2010, and his friend Mr David Moree, who is the respondent to this appeal. The money in the account, which amounted to some $190,000 by the date of his death, was all contributed by Mr Lennard, mainly if not entirely from an account previously in his sole name at the same bank, the First Caribbean International Bank (Bahamas) Ltd. The sole question in these proceedings is whether, upon Mr Lennard’s death, the beneficial interest in the previously joint account passed to Mr Moree by survivorship, or whether it formed part of Mr Lennard’s estate, by reason of the operation of the equitable doctrine of presumed resulting trust, since Mr Lennard had provided all the money.

2.                  On the setting up of the joint account in November 2009, both Mr Lennard and Mr Moree signed an account opening application in the Bank’s standard joint account form which included the following provision, at clause 20:

“JOINT TENANCY: Unless otherwise agreed in writing, all money which is now or may later be credited to the Account (including all interest) is our joint property with the right of survivorship. That means that if one of us dies, all money in the Account automatically becomes the property of the other account holder(s). In order to make this legally effective, we each assign such money to the other account holder (or the others jointly if there is more than one other account holder).”

At the heart of this appeal lie two questions:

(1)              Does clause 20 deal with the beneficial ownership of the joint account, or merely with the bare legal title to the chose in action against the bank represented by the account?

(2)              Is the fact that Mr Lennard and Mr Moree opened the joint account by means of a signed written application containing clause 20 determinative of its beneficial ownership, as at the date of Mr Lennard’s death?

3.                  This was not how the issues were identified in the courts below. There, it appears to have been common ground that, upon Mr Lennard’s death, Mr Moree held the money on resulting trust for Mr Lennard’s estate unless he could prove, the burden being on him, that Mr Lennard had intended to make a gift of the…