Gore and Snell v Carpenter (1990) 60 P & CR 456
Court: Chancery Division
A separating couple’s negotiations about dividing their properties did not sever their beneficial joint tenancies. Although they had reached an agreement in principle, financial matters remained unresolved and neither party had committed to treating the properties as held in separate shares irrespective of the eventual settlement.
The dispute
A husband and wife owned two properties as joint tenants. After separating, they negotiated a rearrangement of their interests as part of their financial settlement. The husband made proposals through his solicitors. The wife’s solicitors replied that she agreed in principle, but that ancillary financial matters still needed to be addressed.
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Those issues were not resolved and no final agreement was reached before the husband died. The question was whether the negotiations had already severed the beneficial joint tenancies during his lifetime. If they had, the interests would have been held as tenancies in common; if they had not, the wife’s entitlement by survivorship remained.
Agreement to divide property and agreement to sever
The court considered whether there had been a mutual agreement to sever or a course of dealing showing that the parties treated their interests as tenancies in common.
The negotiations had not produced a settled mutual agreement to sever. The proposed property arrangement remained part of a wider financial settlement. Each party had reserved their position and remained free to argue for different financial arrangements in the divorce proceedings. Their provisional agreement therefore did not establish that they had already changed the basis on which they held the properties.
Nor did their dealings independently demonstrate severance. Although negotiations that ultimately break down can potentially reveal a common intention to hold separate shares, that intention had not been established here. In particular, Mrs Carpenter had not committed herself to a tenancy in common before the proposed division of the properties.
Decision
The joint tenancies had not been severed. The wife consequently remained entitled by survivorship when her husband died.
The distinction is between discussing a future division and demonstrating a present, mutual intention to hold separate beneficial shares. The decision turned on the provisional character of these negotiations and the parties’ reserved positions, rather than simply the absence of a signed settlement document.
Sources: Gore and Snell v Carpenter (1990) 60 P & CR 456; Cooper v Coleman, paragraph 52.
