FMT303: Ruyer and Steph Were in love After Seeing Each Other for Eight Months: Property Law Assignment, SUSS, Singapore

Assignment Brief

Ruyer and Steph were in love. After seeing each other for eight months, they decided that they should live together. Around the same time, a relative of Ruyer’s died and left him enough money to finance the purchase of a small house for Ruyer and Steph to live in together.

When the purchase of the house was going through, Ruyer told Steph that both their names would be entered ‘on the register’. Steph did not really know the meaning of registration, but she understood it to mean that she had some sort of property right. This made sense to her, even though she had paid no money to the purchase herself because she and Ruyer were so in love, and planned to spend the rest of their lives together and hoped to have children.

For the next five years, they were very happy together. Steph worked in a local shop. The money she earned went towards household bills for food, electricity, and gas. In her time off from work, Steph pursued her love of DIY.

She built a small shed in the garden and decorated the house throughout. She also made a coffee table and a cabinet to use in the house. Meanwhile, Ruyer started his own business and was, initially at least, very successful.

Recently, Steph woke up to find a short note on the coffee table from Ruyer: It said: ‘Sorry. I have to get away for a while’. Confused and upset, Steph was even more distraught when, a few days later, a letter arrived from Southern Stone bank. Although it was addressed to Ruyer, Steph opened it. Southern Stone confirmed that, due to Ruyer’s failure to repay a business loan secured on the house, it was seeking a possession order.

On further investigation, Steph discovered that not only had Ruyer secured the loan by creating a mortgage over the property three years ago, but that the house had been registered in his name alone all along. Thinking back, she remembered that, when the mortgage was created three years ago, she had been away from home looking after her sick mother.

Advise Steph on what rights she may have in relation to the house: she has heard nothing from Ruyer, who seems to have disappeared without a trace.