Tinker v Tinker [1970] 1 All ER 540  Court of Appeal

A husband bought a garage business in Cornwall and found a house nearby for his family. He decided to buy the house in his wife's name so that if his garage business was not a success, his creditors would not be able to take it. Shortly after the purchase the marriage broke up and the husband sought to recover the house from the wife. 

held: 

The husband was not entitled to recover the house. 

Salmon LJ:

1. "The burden of displacing the presumption of advancement is therefore on the husband. This burden can in many cases be displaced without much effort. It seems to me however that in this case the husband's evidence, far from displacing the presumption, has done much to reinforce it."

   Having reviewed the evidence and pointed out that there would be nothing wrong in the husband's putting the property into his wife's name in order to protect it from his creditors, the learned Lord Justice continued, at p.142F:

   "It seems to me to follow from the registrar's finding that he was an honest man that the husband must have intended the house should belong to his wife. That is why I say that his evidence strengthens the presumption of advancement. As far as I can see, the only possible alternative to what I have just described would be the husband dishonestly putting the house in his wife's name with the intention of himself having the beneficial interest in it, and also with the intention, when he failed in business, to go to his creditors and say quite untruthfully and dishonestly: 'I have no interest in this house. You can look at the documents, and they are plain enough to show that I have none.' The registrar negatived that dishonest frame of mind, and certainly this court would not interfere with that finding."

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