Jones v Kernott [2011] UKSC 53 is a decision by the UK Supreme Court concerning the beneficial entitlement to a co-owned family home under a constructive trust.

Ms Jones responded by claiming under the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996 (TOLATA) for a declaration that she owned the entire beneficial interest in the property.

Judge Dedman, after considering Oxley v Hiscock [2005] Fam 211 and Stack v Dowden [2007] 2 AC 432, held that while the interests of the parties at the outset might well have been that the property should be split jointly, those intentions had altered significantly over the years.

The appeal from the decision of Judge Dedman in the Southend-on-Sea County Court on 21 April 2008 was heard on 12 May 2009, judgment handed down on 10 July 2009, by Mr Nicholas Strauss QC in the High Court of Justice, Chancery Division who dismissed the appeal, as before awarding beneficiary shares in the Badger Hall Avenue house to Jones and Kernott in the ratio of 90:10.

On the other hand, I would have no difficulty in concluding, as did Mr Strauss and as would Lord Wilson, that it was eminently fair that the property should be divided between the parties in the shares decreed by Judge Dedman.

Mr Strauss observed, at para 31, that it was difficult to see how – at that final stage of the inquiry – the process could work without the court's supply of what it considered to be fair.

In his judgment on the second appeal Lord Justice Rimer went so far as to suggest, at para 77, that Lady Hale's third sentence must have meant that, contrary to appearances, she had not intended to recognise a power to impute a common intention at all.

Lord Walker and Lady Hale observe, at para 34 above, that in practice the difference between inferring and imputing a common intention to the parties may not be great.

Indeed in the present case they conclude, at paras 48 and 49, that, in relation to Chadwick LJ's second question the proper inference from the evidence, which, if he did not draw, the trial judge should have drawn, was that the parties came to intend that the proportions of the beneficial interests in the home should be held on a basis which in effect equates to 90% to Ms Jones and to 10% to Mr Kernott (being the proportions in favour of which the judge ruled).