In Cheung Lai Mui v Cheung Wai Shing ([2021] HKEC 2263) the Court of Final Appeal had to consider whether, in proprietary estoppel cases, detrimental reliance had to be incurred before the death of the landowner who gave the assurance. If it did, they had to consider whether this requirement was satisfied in the present case.
The dispute concerned land in a village in the New Territories. The landowners in question were three brothers, each with a one third share in the land. D3 was the only grandson of the three brothers’ father.
There was a common understanding between the brothers, from the 1970s onwards, that D3 would inherit the land.
Knowing of this, D3, a building contractor, began building a wall around the property in the 1980s. D3 did further work in the early 1990s.
The death of the last of the brothers was in 1999. D3 erected two buildings and did improvement work at the property after 1999.
D3 inherited a one third share of the land. P was the executrix / administratrix of the other two thirds. She sought an order for sale of the land under the Partition Ordinance.
There were two questions:
(1) Did D3’s detrimental reliance have to have been incurred before the death of the brothers?
(2) If so, was the work that he did in the 1980s and early 1990s substantial enough to amount to detrimental reliance?
The Court of Final Appeal held that the detriment had to be incurred before the death of the landowner ([31]).
Where there were co-owners, the detriment had to be incurred before the last of the co-owners who gave the assurance ([33]).
Post-death events might be relevant to the form that the relief should take ([32]).
Implicitly, the Court of Final Appeal accepted that D3’s work before 1999 was detrimental reliance.
D3’s claim succeeded.
P held the two-thirds share on constructive trust for D3 who became, therefore, the sole beneficial owner ([38]).
Michael Lower