Supreme Court of Ireland Decisions

1. In these proceedings the wife as plaintiff is claiming against the husband as defendant that she is entitled to a share in the family home in Cork. The marriage has broken down and the wife has instituted these proceedings for the purpose of asserting a number of claims. In this appeal, however, the only question is whether Costello J was correct in holding that the wife’s claim to a share in the family home in Cork was unfounded.

2. In 1972 the husband and wife were living in Dublin. He was employed by an insurance company. In that year he was transferred to Cork. That meant that he had to sell the family home in Dublin. This he did. It realised £5,000, but out of that sum there had to be paid £3,200 in discharge of a mortgage on the house. That left £1,800. It seems to be agreed that because the wife had in effect contributed one-third of the purchase price of that house, she was entitled to one-third of the £1,800. However, she never got any part of the £600 she was entitled to. She allowed her husband to use it.

3. The husband proceeded to buy a family home in Cork. It cost £9,000. Because he was in the employment of an insurance company, he was able to get his employers to take a mortgage for the full amount of the purchase money. Thus he did not have to lay out any part of the purchase money. He merely had to pay the instalments due under the mortgage.

4. As to the £1,800 left over from the sale of the Dublin home, the wife allowed the husband to use it in full. He spent it in furnishing and fitting-out the Cork home. Costello J held that, because the wife was entitled to one-third of the £1,800, she became entitled to a one-third share in the furniture and fittings (including carpets) in the Cork home. Counsel for the wife contends that that was not a correct conclusion. He says that the proper conclusion to be drawn from the use of the wife’s money in furnishing and fitting-out the Cork home is that it gave her a one-third share in the house itself.

5. Since the decision of Kenny J in C v C [1976] IR 254, it has been judicially accepted that where the matrimonial home has been purchased in the name of the husband, and the wife has, either directly or indirectly, made contributions towards the purchase price or towards the discharge of mortgage instalments, the husband will be held to be a trustee for the wife of a share in the house roughly corresponding with the proportion of the purchase money represented by the wife’s total contribution. Such a trust will be inferred when the wife’s contribution is of such a size and kind as will justify the conclusion that the acquisition of the house was achieved by the joint efforts of the spouses.

6. When the wife’s contribution has been indirect (such as by contributing, by means other earnings, to a general family fund) the courts will, in the absence of any express or implied agreement to the contrary, infer a trust in favour of the wife, on the ground that she has to that extent relieved the husband of the financial burden he incurred in purchasing the house.

7. In the present case it has been contended on behalf of the wife that, in allowing the husband to use her one-third of the £1,800, which he spent on furniture and fittings for the house in Cork, he should be held to be a trustee for her of a one-eighteenth share in the house (one-eighteenth being the proportion between the wife’s £600 and the £10,800 spent by the husband on acquiring the house and furnishing it). This contention rests on the submission that the wife’s £600 went into a family fund and that to that extent it eased the financial liability incurred by the husband in purchasing the house.

8. I am unable to accede to this proposition. The wife’s £600 was in no way applied to the purchase of the house. The full purchase price was provided by the husband’s employers, who got a mortgage on the house. The employers collected the mortgage payments by means of deductions from his salary. So it could not be said that the £600 or any part of it relieved the husband of any share of the financial burden he incurred in purchasing the house.

9. The true position, it seems to me, was that found by Costello J, namely that the £600 was applied by the husband, not in acquiring the house, but as part of the £1,800 he spent on furniture and fittings. The expenditure thus by the husband of the £600 could not be said to have given the wife any beneficial interest in the house. All she got was, as was held in the High Court, a one-third share in the furniture and fittings (including carpets).

10. I would accordingly dismiss this appeal.