PT-2023-001131 - [2025] EWHC 2728 (Ch)

Fecha: 21-Oct-2025

The parties’ positions in outline

The parties’ positions in outline

The Claimant submits that this is a simple case. The Defendant made a gift which she now regrets. She executed the Deed and provided a copy to the Claimant without any indication that it was not intended to take immediate effect. She knew at the time that it would be provided to third parties (at the very least, to the Claimant’s mortgage broker and/or lender) on the basis that it was a final binding document. The context in which the Deed was executed was that the Claimant was hoping to buy the Property from the estate and the Defendant wished to facilitate the Claimant’s efforts to progress that proposal by helping him prove that he had the necessary deposit. However, that context does not give the Defendant the right to set aside or deny the gift she made. Whilst it is right that the Claimant required the gift contained in the Deed in order to make the purchase, it does not follow, either as a matter of fact or law, that the Deed’s validity was conditional on a purchase of the Property by the Claimant.

The Defendant took three points in her Defence:

(1)

The Defendant did not deliver the Deed to the Claimant at any time. She told the Claimant in an email dated 25September 2022 that she would not release the Deed until (a) probate had been granted and (b) confirmation of a sale of the Property. When the Deed was provided to the Claimant by email dated 10 October 2022, this was in order to assist him in obtaining finance to purchase the Property, and not by way of delivery.

(2)

In any event, the Defendant could revoke the Deed, given that the Claimant told the Defendant in an email dated 24 September 2022 that she could “keep the variation”. This was said to indicate that the Claimant “gave his consent to its revocation”.

(3)

In the alternative to the Defendant’s case that the Deed was not delivered, the Deed was made by the Defendant under a mistaken belief that the Claimant “intended to acquire the Property from the Deceased’s estate and preserve it as a family home by settling it on trust”. This was a mistake, in that the Claimant either did not intend to preserve the Property as a family home or was not in fact in a position to do so, because the Claimant intended to subdivide the Property into flats, which would be rented out.

The contention that the Defendant was entitled to revoke the Deed, because of the email dated 24 September 2022, was abandoned at trial. This point was rightly abandoned. The words used in that email, and the context in which the email were sent, do not make an otherwise binding gift by deed revocable.

I should add that I heard an application for summary judgment by the Claimant on 27 June 2024. I dismissed the application. It was not possible to find that the Defendant had no real prospect of defending the claim, certainly at least on the first and third grounds set out above, although I did indicate that I was more dubious about the second ground. The circumstances in which the Defendant sent the Deed to the Claimant required further scrutiny at trial.