Imputing intention and the family home

The article examines a number of first instance and Court of Appeal decisions since the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Jones v Kernott [2011] UKSC 53 [2012] 1 FLR 45 which appear to accept a process of imputation at only the second (assessment) stage of the analysis.

Interestingly however in Jones itself Lord Wilson left open the possibility of allowing the common intention required at the first stage to be imputed if it was not otherwise identifiable by express discussions or inferred from the parties’ whole course of conduct. Most recently also Mostyn J in Bhura v Bhura (No 2) [2014] EWHC 727 (Fam) [2015] 1 FLR 153 when rehearsing the applicable principles summarised the effect of Jones by essentially collapsing the traditional two-stage analysis into just one question of identifying the parties’ common intention by...

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