In Lun Kwai Har v Hung Ying Yi ([2016] HKEC 724) the plaintiff (mother-in-law) and defendant (daughter-in-law) were the joint holders of a bank account. The daughter-in-law withdrew most of the money from the account and paid it into other accounts in her sole name. In Yung Shu Wu v Vivienne Sung Wu ((2011) the Court of Final Appeal approved the proposition that unless there is evidence of a contrary intention, a single joint holder is entitled to withdraw money from it for his or her own benefit. Here, however, there was evidence of a contrary intention. The joint account had been set up to receive the proceeds of sale of a property the legal title to which was in the joint names of the plaintiff and the defendant as tenants in common. This fact was evidence of the contrary intention. Each of the parties tried to argue that they were the sole beneficial owners of the property (and thus of the proceeds of sale). The starting point (equity follows the law) was that they were legal and equitable tenants in common and neither party succeeded in persuading Godfrey Lam J. to deviate from this position. The defendant had to repay the plaintiff’s share of the money taken from the bank account.
Michael Lower
