103 Iowa L. Rev. 1971 (2018)

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Abstract

Wealth transfer between generations is not confined to testamentary dispositions. It can also involve straightforward transfers of property from living parents to their children and purchases by living parents of property then placed into their children’s names. Legal title to the property will be in the child, but the child might hold the property on trust for the parent. It is here that the equitable presumptions of resulting trust and gift operate.

This Article identifies and interrogates differences in the modern operation of these equitable presumptions between the United States and certain Commonwealth jurisdictions. The analysis includes: whether or not the presumptions apply to voluntary conveyances of property; the underlying rationale of the presumption of gift that applies in favor of spouses, children, and other natural objects of bounty; the relationships in respect of which that presumption applies; the type and timing of evidence used to rebut that presumption; and the nature of the trust (express or resulting) that arises on rebuttal. The Article shows that the United States and the Commonwealth jurisdictions now employ these presumptions in significantly different ways.