Facts: A mother bought a house with her son, with the son providing most of the money for its purchase. They lived together in the house, until the mother fell out with her daughter-in-law.

Held: As the property was bought in unequal shares it was presumed by the court that the property was held as an equitable tenancy in common. Therefore, it was decided that the mother was an equitable tenant in common.

Facts: A husband and wife both made wills, using the same solicitor and at the same time, leaving their share in the property to another person. The questions was whether or not this severed the joint tenancy

Held: It was held you cannot sever a joint tenancy in this way. Furthermore, as there was no evidence that they had agreed to make such wills, there had been no agreement or communication to sever either

Facts: A couple separated as they were contemplating divorce. They owned two properties as joint tenants. They had discussed severance as a a possible option and drew up an agreement with each taking one house. However, ultimately, the wife did not agree tot the severance

Held: It was held the joint tenancy had NOT been severed by either agreement or course of dealign

Facts: 5 occupants died after a bomb hit their house

Held: The House of Lords held that they died in order of age (with the oldest dying first). In other words, the younger shall have been deemed (for the purposes of law) to have survived the elder. The practical effect of this is that the property would be deemed to go to the estate of the youngest person

Facts: A wife sent a notice of severance to her husband. At around the same time that the post office delivered it to the husband he was admitted to hospital, where he died. The wife then destroyed the notice.

Held: It was held that the joint tenancy had been severed despite the fact that the husband never saw the notice and died.

Facts: The joint tenants lived at the same address. R sent notice to sever the joint tenancy to G, and signed for the letter herselg. G denied ever having seen the letter, which the court accepted as true. The question for the court was whether you could sever a joint tenancy by notice if that notice was never actually received by the other tenant

Held: The court held that by virtue of s.196(4) of the LPA 1925, the notice had been received and the joint tenancy had been severed

Facts: K was threatening her husband with his shotgun, which discharged and killed him. K was convicted of manslaughter. She was also a joint tenant of the family home, thus became sole owner on her husband’s death (under the right of survivorship i.e. jus accrescendi). However, the issue for the court was forfeiture: forfeiture provides that a person cannot benefit by unlawfull killing another.

Held: The court modified the forfeiture rule, under the Forfeiture Act 1982, to allow the widow to retain the property. Note: the court cannot modify the rule in cases of murder, but this was a case of manslaughter so the rule could be modified!