ABSTRACT
Importantly, the court looked at the value contributed and not at the amount of cash paid. It is interesting to see how this compares to Lord Bridge’s insistence in Rosset that it is at least extremely doubtful whether anything less than a direct contribution to the mortgage or to the purchase price will do. If it is accepted that procuring a reduction in the purchase price is a sufficient contribution, why should it be impossible to argue that if A pays for the household costs, the car and the children’s clothes, thus enabling B to defray the mortgage, that A is not making it possible for B to pay off the mortgage and thus making a financial contribution to the purchase? After all, once you accept that the contribution need not be made in cash, at what point is the line to be drawn under the range of non-cash contributions which are possible?
