Montalto v Popat and Others [2016] EWHC 801 (Ch)

This case is a cautionary tale of the ‘cost and heartache’ (para [139]) that can follow the break-up of a couple who are neither married nor in a civil partnership but who together own businesses and property (including in this case tanning shops pot-plants towels clothing Ikea chairs and a Mercedes!).

Interpose between the parties and their properties a trust and some companies and matters are still further complicated.  And then imagine that the registers of members of those companies although not quite ‘lost in a skip’ as in Re Data Express Limited (The Times 27 April 1987) are nonetheless nowhere to be found the official records at Companies House not being in accord with the reality as to share ownership.  What a pickle.

But surely there’s nothing that standard – or indeed specific – disclosure can’t flush out in the form of contemporaneous documents and the all-important bank statements?

And memories won’t be too rusty after twenty-plus years will they?

As Waite J observed in H v M (Beneficial Interest) [1992] 1 FLR 229 ...

Read the full article here.