‘It is rare that a spouse needs to pursue a claim in proprietary estoppel to secure occupation of a matrimonial home owned by the other spouse on the latter’s death: the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 will usually provide a remedy. But where, as here, the deceased is not domiciled in England and Wales the 1975 Act does not apply and an interesting point arises. The trial judge had found that there had been repeated representations to the effect that the wife might live in the property for so long as she wished made over a period of more than 20 years. The wife had reasonably relied upon those representations (understandably so one might think). However, the estate argued that the wife’s long “rent-free” occupation of the property owned by her husband counted as a “countervailing benefit” which the court was obliged to weigh in the balance and might mitigate or extinguish her equity. Such a countervailing benefit has been taken into account in the case of a licensee who harvests a crop (Henry v Henry [2010] UKPC 3) of a live-in carer paying no rent (Jennings v Rice [2002] EWCA 159) and of a son-in-law paying no rent to his parents-in-law after the death of his wife (Sledmore v Dalby (1996) 72 P & CR 196). In the latter case the benefit was sufficient wholly to extinguish the equity.’

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Pump Court Chambers, 20th November 2020

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