Sharon Ann Morgan & Ors v The Estate of Terence David Morgan deceased & Ors

Judge Keyser KC : Introduction

1. Terence David Morgan (“Terence”) died intestate on 11 April 2022 at the age of 41 years. The first claimant (“Mrs Morgan”) is his mother. The third claimant (“Miss Msomi”) is one of his sisters. The second defendant (“Miss Morgan-Seivwright”) is his daughter. The third defendant (“Miss Fraser”) was his partner at the time of his death and is the mother of his son, Cassius Morgan, who is now aged 18 years.

2. By the rules of intestacy, Terence’s estate devolves to Miss Morgan-Seivwright and Cassius Morgan in equal shares. Letters of Administration of Terence’s estate were granted to Miss Morgan-Seivwright and Miss Fraser on 4 June 2024.

3. In these proceedings, Mrs Morgan and Miss Msomi allege that they had given money to Terence to hold on trust for them: Mrs Morgan, £20,000 in cash on or around 15 October 2021; Miss Msomi, £10,000 in cash on or around 31 August 2021. They allege that the common intention of themselves and Terence was that the money would be used only for the purpose of purchasing a home for Mrs Morgan and that Terence deposited it into a separate bank account, where it remained until he died, though it has since been paid to Miss Morgan-Seivwright and Miss Fraser.

4. The defendants dispute the claim and say that the evidence produced by the claimants does not sufficiently prove their case. In evidence, though not in their defence, they advance the positive case that the money in question was money that Terence had saved by himself.

5. In the proceedings as originally constituted, Terence’s father (“Mr Morgan senior”) also made a claim to be beneficially entitled to £14,880 in respect of cash in that sum that he said he had handed to Terence in August 2018, which was held separately from any money Terence later received from Mrs Morgan and Miss Msomi. However, Mr Morgan senior discontinued his claim in May 2025. References below to “the claimants” will be to Mrs Morgan and Miss Msomi alone.

6. In my judgment, the case turns entirely on the facts. At trial I received oral evidence from Mrs Morgan and Miss Msomi and from several witnesses on their behalf: Zena Morgan, who is a daughter of Mrs Morgan and the sister of Terence and of Miss Msomi; Mondi Msomi, who is Miss Msomi’s former husband; David John Morgan, who is Mrs Morgan’s brother and Terence’s uncle; and Carole Green, a friend of Miss Msomi. I also received as hearsay evidence on behalf of the claimants the written statements of Penny Morgan, who is the wife of David John Morgan, and of Kelly Johnson, who is a family friend. On the defendants’ side, Miss Morgan-Seivwright and Miss Fraser gave oral evidence, as did Cassius Morgan. Miss Msomi presented the case on behalf of herself and Mrs Morgan. Mr Graham Smith of counsel, instructed under Direct Access, represented the defendants at the trial.

7. The contents of this judgment will be restricted to matters concerning the issues in the case—there will be no discussion of some other contentious matters that have been raised in the evidence—and will not refer to all of the evidence given at trial, although I have considered it all. The judgment will be structured as follows. First, I shall provide a narrative, which will set out the matters that are uncontentious or appear to my satisfaction from the documents; this will include a record of what the parties have said at various times about events. (In the course of the narrative I shall refer to various firms of solicitors but only by initials: JD, HPJV, RJC and BA.) There will then follow a discussion, in which I shall consider some of the most relevant evidence with reference to the issues. Finally, my conclusions are summarised at paragraphs 58 to 64. Narrative

8. The relationships of the various persons to each other have already been explained.

9. In about 2007 Terence purchased a house at 18 Temple Street, Newport. This was his parents’ home, but they had struggled to meet their mortgage repayments, so Terence bought the property with the assistance of a buy-to-let mortgage and his parents became his tenants there. They paid the rent by means of housing benefit; the evidence of Miss Fraser (which I accept on this point) is that this did not fully cover the mortgage repayments, and that Terence met the shortfall out of his own income, “which affected us financially, as we had only recently purchased our own home” (witness statement, paragraph 2).

10. By 2018 Mrs Morgan and Mr Morgan senior had separated. Mr Morgan senior was still living at 18 Temple Street, and Mrs Morgan was living in private rented accommodation elsewhere.

11. Before dawn on 3 November 2018 Terence, who was having trouble sleeping and wanted “to get [things] off [his] chest”, sent an email to Miss Fraser, in which he wrote of the great pressure he had felt when he had been responsible both for the mortgage on the home he shared with Miss Fraser and for the mortgage on 18 Temple Street, and of the great relief that he felt when the mortgage on the home he shared with Miss Fraser was paid off by her mother. He said that his father, though knowing that Terence was paying a mortgage on 18 Temple Street, would not vacate it but would rather see him lose the house. The email, though not directly concerning the issues in the case, does have some bearing on them, as will become apparent.

12. It is common ground and established on the evidence that, at least in 2021 if not before, Terence was considering the purchase of another property, in which Mrs Morgan would live instead of the rented property where she was then living. It is also clear that Terence had earmarked certain moneys for the deposit for that intended house purchase. The issues in the present case concern in particular the source of those moneys.

13. On 15 October 2021 Terence made two cash deposits, one of £20,000 and one of £9,800, into an account with Santander (no. 77666878) in the joint names of himself and Miss Fraser.

14. On 16 October 2021 Terence opened an account with First Direct, an online division of HSBC Bank. The evidence of Miss Msomi, confirmed by screenshots exhibited to her witness statement, is that she assisted him in opening the account and had the details required for access to the account. On 16 October Terence made six deposits into the account, all of which came from the Santander account. The first was for £1 and had the reference “hi”. The other five all had the reference “house deposit”: £5,000, £5,000, £5,000, £4,800, £10,000. On 18 October Terence made another deposit into the First Direct account, also with the reference “house deposit”, this time of £1,320. That, again, came from the Santander account and is the sum of the deposits into that account made since the previous transfers: £1,000 in cash on 16 October, and £320 on 18 October from Miss Msomi. No further deposits were made into the First Direct account. On 17 October 2021 a withdrawal of £20 was made from an ATM by Miss Msomi for the purpose of checking that the bank card issued by First Direct and given to her by Terence was working. Thereafter only a very few, small withdrawals were made before Terence died. It was said in evidence that no withdrawals were made after the £20 on 17 October 2021. That does not appear to be strictly correct. Although I have not seen a full set of bank statements for the account, there is evidence that £150 in cash was withdrawn on 22 November 2021 and that £200 (reference: “Vicki sister birthday”) was debited on 24 November 2021. It is possible that these amounts were repaid into the account, but I cannot verify this. It also appears that the balance in the account was about £1,100 less when it was closed than it had been on 1 November 2021. At all events, however, it is clear that there was minimal activity on the account.

15. The claimants’ case is that the money in the First Direct account represented cash that they had given Terence, and that nearly all of it (see paragraph 17 below for the exception) was to be held by him for the specific purpose of putting down the deposit for a property to be purchased for Mrs Morgan to live in. As the payments to Terence are said to have been in cash, there could be no conclusive paper-trail. However, both claimants refer to documents that are said to support their case.

16. Mrs Morgan says that, being old-fashioned, she preferred to use cash rather than bank accounts, and that she gave Terence £20,000 in cash that she held in her home. In this regard, she refers to a series of text messages that she exchanged with Miss Msomi on 14 October 2021, immediately before the cash deposits into the Santander account. (I show Mrs Morgan as C1 and Miss Msomi as C3.) “C1 Vick Terry mentioned about he have opened bank account and the twenty thousand I got here will have to go in when house comes up he said will you ask vick to do it plz x C3 Morning Shazza, hope you are ok. What do you want me to do C1 To take the twenty thousand and put it in the new account that Terry set up coz if something comes up that money got to be in there …” Those text messages appear to be on the account of a person called “Mandy”, who Mrs Morgan explained was a close friend and treated as a member of the family. No meta-data have been disclosed, or for that matter asked for. But it seems to me to be highly unlikely that the text messages are other than genuine. They therefore support Mrs Morgan’s case that she had £20,000 at her house and that it was delivered to Terence to be deposited in a new bank account for use in purchasing a house.

17. Miss Msomi says that she gave her brother £10,000 in cash for the same purpose. This money is said to have come from an account with TSB Bank in the name of her daughter, Khaya, who at the time was 10 years old. Miss Msomi has produced a photograph of a statement from that account for the period August to December 2021, which has the following relevant entries: • On 31 August 2021 a deposit of £10,000 was made. The source of the deposit is shown as “E Msomi Gogo”. The evidence of Miss Msomi and of her former husband, Mondli Msomi, is that this was a gift from Khaya’s paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Msomi. (“Gogo” is a word used in South Africa for grandmother.) I accept that evidence. • On 3 September 2021 there was a cash withdrawal of £6,000. • On 6 September 2021 there was a cash withdrawal of £4,200. • On 13 September 2021 there was a cash withdrawal of £1,200. • On 6 October 2021 there was a cash withdrawal of £300. • On 15 October 2021 there was a cash withdrawal of £2,200. Miss Msomi’s case is that the first three withdrawals were given to Terence, in the sum of £11,400. Of this, £10,000 was for a house deposit. And £1,320 was to be held for release from time to time for payment for Khaya’s dance activities . The significant question is whether the cash withdrawals from Khaya’s account represent any part of the deposits into the Santander and First Direct accounts. I shall address that question later. The explanation of the £1,320 is somewhat strange, but I do not think it implausible. Terence has been referred to as the “patriarch” of the Morgan family, and he does appear to have taken a degree of control of the family’s financial affairs.

18. On the basis of messages exhibited to the amended particulars of claim, I am satisfied that during much of 2021 Terence and his two sisters, Miss Msomi and Zena Morgan, were actively looking for a property that might be suitable for their mother to live in. Importantly, they show (and I find as a fact) that Terence’s involvement in these efforts continued for the whole period from September 2021 until 9 April 2022, just two days before he died.

19. In or about January 2022 Terence obtained the opportunity to go to work in the Arabian Peninsula—either Saudi Arabia or Dubai, I am not entirely sure which. Miss Fraser’s evidence was to the effect that he had agreed to take up this opportunity and that it would have involved her and Cassius Morgan moving there with him, and that their home in Newport would have been rented out. Mr Morgan senior would have continued to rent 18 Temple Street.

20. On 17 March 2022 Terence exchanged a series of text messages with Miss Morgan-Seivwright, who at that time was employed by a firm of financial advisers and mortgage brokers, David Stock & Co. I have not seen the start of the series; the parts in evidence read as follows (I add “T” for Terence and “D2” for Miss Morgan-Seivwright). “T … ask your boss for information if I buy house and put in you and Cassius name like a trust. Think it may be a bare trust You got temple street cass got duffryn and split my house when me and Carla go. But can I buy nan house and put in trust D2 He said if there’s a mortgage on it then no because if for any chance you don’t pay the mortgage me and cass wouldn’t be able to pay it he said but you can estate plan and put down in writing that the house will go to us So you can yeah but it will be once the mortgage is paid off then it will go to us T No mortgage on them properties. I’m talking about the one I’m going to buy for nan. Put in both your names D2 Yeah but you can’t do that if there’s a mortgage on it Will have to be the mortgage in your name then you right [sic] in trust that it’s to go to us T Ok Will look again D2 At what T The house I buy nan and putting I [presumably, in] both names. May be easier my name and a will lol”.

21. Those messages are confirmation that as late as 3½ weeks before he died Terence was actively contemplating the purchase of a property in which Mrs Morgan would live. Miss Morgan-Seivwright’s evidence was that her father had a single appointment with David Stock and, in the light of the advice he received concerning the difficulties of obtaining a mortgage and the likely cost of stamp duty, he did not proceed to make a mortgage application. Be that as it may, there is clear evidence (and I find) that Terence continued to consider possible properties until the time of his death. What the messages do clearly show is that Terence was not intending to buy a property that would be owned by Mrs Morgan: rather, he was intending that the property would be in Terence’s own name and either held on trust for his children or left to them in his will; Mrs Morgan would be a tenant, servicing the mortgage through payment of rent, via housing benefit, in the same way that Mr Morgan senior serviced (part of) the mortgage on 18 Temple Street.

22. Whatever may have been Terence’s intentions, he did not have the opportunity to take things further, because he died suddenly on 11 April 2022. In the aftermath of his death, a serious breakdown occurred in the relations between Miss Morgan-Seivwright on the one side and her grandparents and aunts on the other. It is not the purpose of this judgment to enter into the rights and wrongs of that breakdown. Some of the communications between solicitors are relevant, however.

23. On 22 April 2022, HPJV, acting for Miss Morgan-Seivwright, wrote to Mrs Morgan to say that they were taking steps to freeze all of Terence’s assets in accordance with their client’s instructions.

24. On 23 May 2022 JD, acting for Mrs Morgan and Mr Morgan senior, wrote to HPJV. The letter said in part: “Our clients are pleased to note that all accounts have been frozen. Doubtless you have been advised that those accounts contain monies which the late Mr Morgan held as Trustee for his parents and niece. Please confirm that no monies have been withdrawn from any of the late Mr Morgan’s accounts since his death.” I infer that the niece referred to was Khaya Msomi.

25. On 21 June 2022 HPJV replied after taking instructions: “Our client has informed us that the late Mr Morgan was being pressured to purchase a property for your client and that he did not wish to do so. Our client claims that your client kept pushing him and so the late Mr Morgan sought advice from David Stock & Co, who informed him they could not find him a lender who would allow him to have a buy-to-let mortgage for his mother who was on benefits. We are aware that these are two main lenders exclusions. Our client also informs us that David Stock & Co also advised Mr Morgan of the high taxes and stamp duty that he would incur in this matter. Our client informs us that Mr Morgan took no further action and was happy not to go through with the mortgage and that he advised your client of the same.” The letter asked for documentary evidence and further information and explanations in support of the intimated claim.

26. JD provided a response to matters raised in that letter. I am not sure of the date of the response, because the first page of JD’s letter is missing (at least, I cannot find it). Relevant parts of the letter include the following: “As to Miss [sic] Morgan, far from the [sic] pressing Terry to buy her a property, he was very unhappy about her living in rented accommodation and wished to assist her to own her home as she had done in the past. It was her money that was to be used to put down the deposit, and Terry was assisting. We attach some of the sample texts passing between our clients showing where he was locating the property. The premises from which he withdrew were overpriced, and his failure to see this through had nothing to do with the stamp duty, a matter which he was aware of, but rather they were not keen to proceed in any event. The late Mr Morgan had arranged for a mortgage via David Stock, your client’s employer. Your client was also assisting her grandmother to locate a property for her to buy. The monies held with First Direct were lodged on their behalf and added to with monies from the account of his niece, Khaya, to assist the grandmother with actions of her mother, Vicky Msomi. Again, we attach copies of the statement showing cash sums withdrawn which will tally with the statements for the account with First Direct …”

27. On 15 August 2022 JD wrote to HPJV as follows. “It is common knowledge within the family that the deceased was very much regarded as the patriarch and handled all of the family’s finances. Your client was assisted by him on many occasions and, indeed, various members of the family deferred to him as to monetary affairs. In particular, his parents relied very heavily on him, as both were somewhat old fashioned and preferred to use only cash, a situation which the deceased then went on to rectify. As neither were comfortable with or wished to deal with banks or open accounts and as they lacked the confidence to deal with the modern banking system, he agreed to undertake this on their behalf. The late Mr Morgan was relied on by his whole family as being very capable with such matters. … The late Mr Morgan had proposed that he held his parents’ and niece’s money in two accounts with a view to assist them with the purchase of a property and to assist with their expenditure. Accounts were opened with Santander and First Direct, and his father and sister were provided with bank cards and access to the account. The late Mr Morgan thus received significant sums and had taken steps to obtain property details sending these out to his mother, and indeed on his mother’s behalf had put an offer in to purchase a property at St David’s Crescent Newport. A mortgage was obtained with the assistance of David Stock & Co albeit that offer was subsequently withdrawn. … Ultimately the late Mr Morgan’s account hold sums which are held on trust and do not fall within his estate. These must now be placed in a separate account, and cannot pass under the intestacy rules to your client. In particular the sum of £10,000 was initially received in cash from his niece’s account during the period August 2021 to December 2021, the sum of £14,880 received from his father on 31 st August 2018, and £20,000 from his mother. As stated these funds are held on trust and do not form part of the estate. In the circumstances we would be grateful if you could would [sic] acknowledge receipt of this letter and confirm that these funds will now be held separately.”

28. On 5 September 2022 JD chased HPJV for a response. On 26 September 2022 JD wrote again: “We write with reference to our recent telephone conversations with Alexis Thomas [of HPJV] and note that you are awaiting instructions but have requested bank statements. We believe that the evidence clearly shows that the monies were placed into an account in the late Mr Morgan’s name on trust for each of his respective parents. Can you please confirm in any event that monies in these accounts if still with the banks will be frozen, alternatively an equivalent amount ring fenced within your own client account so that these monies will not be distributed. Our clients are now concerned at the delays in this matter and that your client [that is, Miss Morgan-Seivwright] is spending a great deal of money and their position regarding the funds held on trust must now be resolved and funds paid to our client. They do not fall within the late Mr Morgan’s estate and should not be included in the estate accounts. Mr Morgan is a bear [sic] trustee rather than a beneficiary of those funds.”

29. On 30 September 2022 HPJV served on Mr Morgan senior a Notice Requiring Possession of 18 Temple Street.

30. On 14 October 2022 JD wrote to HPJV: “You have indicated that you have obtained bank statements in this matter, but we have not heard from you. We have also not had any substantive response to our letter. we must now receive both within the next 14 days, or the return of our client’s funds, failing which we will be advising our client as to the issue of proceedings.”

31. On 24 October 2022 HPJV wrote a long letter to JD. It read in part: “In respect of Mrs Morgan’s claim and Miss Msomi’s claim that the £30,000 belonged to them, we have looked through the bank statements and can confirm that cash payments were made into the joint account of the late Mr Morgan and that payments were then transferred to a First Direct Account in the late Mr Morgan’s sole name. However, we do not have evidence of the cash withdrawals from your client’s account/s to the late Mr Morgan’s account, there was no written agreement between your clients and the late Mr Morgan with regards to this amount, and you cannot provide evidence as to the reason why these funds would still be in the account of the late Mr Morgan if they belonged to your clients when there was no active conveyance from September 2021 to the date of his death. Neither are you able to provide confirmation that you are satisfied with your clients’ origin/source of funds in relation to the cash payments into Mr Morgan’s account. … You also informed us in one of your letters that the monies held with First Direct were also contributed to by the late Mr Morgan’s niece Khaya to assist her grandmother and her mother in the supposed property purchase. Our instructions are that Khaya is a minor and we wonder therefore whether your instructions that Khaya has contributed are correct.”

32. Thereafter the claimants withdrew instructions from JD and did not take active steps to pursue their claim. Miss Fraser, meanwhile, consulted RJC. In February 2023 HPJV terminated its retainer with Miss Morgan-Seivwright because she had not provided instructions. On 9 February 2023 HPJV wrote to RJC, asking for the latter’s client account details so that the sum of £15,000.50 could be transferred there for Cassius Morgan. That sum was duly transferred to RJC, and on 17 May 2023 RJC, after deducting some costs, transferred £14,280.50 to Miss Fraser.

33. On 19 May 2023 RJC sent their file to BA together with a letter setting out “a brief resume”, which was to the following effect. The main asset of Terence’s estate was the house that was occupied by Mr Morgan senior, who was paying no rent and was refusing to leave. The account with First Direct had been closed: 50% had been paid to Miss Morgan-Seivwright, who had been asked by HPJV to return the money when JD intimated Mrs Morgan’s claim but had refused to return it; the balance, less some costs, had been paid to Miss Fraser to hold on behalf of Cassius Morgan. RJC had made that payment to Miss Fraser because JD had done nothing since October 2022 to advance Mrs Morgan’s claim.

34. On 11 March 2024 Mrs Morgan wrote to BA. The main subject matter of the letter was 18 Temple Street; this is not relevant to the present case. The letter concluded: “Separately, please confirm by return when the sum of £44,880 which was being held on trust by my son for his parents and family prior to his death will be returned by those purporting to act on behalf of my son’s estate.”

35. On 12 April 2024 these proceedings were commenced in the county court. (For reasons that are not clear to me, the case was transferred to this court in February 2025.)

36. The nub of the claimants’ claim was set out in the original particulars of claim, dated 4 January 2024, as follows: “7. Prior to his death, the Claimants transferred under trust the following sums of money to the late Terence David Morgan: a. The First Claimant [Mrs Morgan] handed £20,000 in cash to the deceased on or around 15 October 2021 to hold on trust; … c. The Third Claimant [Miss Msomi] handed £10,000 in cash on or around 31 August 2021 to hold on trust.”

8. The monies belonging to the First and Third Claimants were placed by the deceased into a separate account held with the bank First Direct after being deposited in his personal account with Santander. These funds remained in the First Direct account up to and including the day the late Terence David Morgan died.”

37. The defence originally filed by Miss Fraser on 31 May 2024 (treated as being the defence of both defendants) questioned the credibility of the claimants’ case and the evidence in support of it. In paragraph 8 it said: “The claimants need to submit credible evidence confirming where the money came from, proving that the money was theirs and if so, what the terms of the agreement were.” In paragraph 13 it said: “As stated previously, no evidence has been submitted to support their claims and, up until now, there has been insufficient evidence for his estate to make payment to the claimants.” The defence did not state any positive case as to the source of the money in the First Direct account. The closest it came to doing so was in paragraph 15: “As a couple the deceased and I were financially comfortable with no mortgage and an annual income of approximately £80,000. Terence Morgan (deceased) and I purchased our property at [address] in 2005 and the mortgage was paid off in January 2019. I also jointly own [address] with my mother and the mortgage was paid off in September 2018. Terence also owned 18 Temple Street … acting as a landlord … [W]e had a considerable amount of disposable income …”

38. On 4 June 2024 Miss Morgan-Seivwright and Miss Fraser took a grant of Letters of Administration of Terence’s estate.

39. In February 2025 the claimants were directed to file amended particulars of claim in order to explain the basis on which a trust was said to have arisen. The amended particulars of claim dated 16 March 2025 repeated the substance of paragraph 7 of the original statement of case and added materially: “13. … The monies were not a gift nor a loan. The monies were given to Terry to hold for the Claimants who would remain beneficially entitled to the monies.

14. It is submitted that in the context of private family arrangements, where the beneficiaries are known, there does not need to be a specific purpose for an oral bare trust to be valid. The trust is not in writing because this is a case of an informal family arrangement.

15. Without prejudice to the position set out in paragraph 14 in the alternative, the Claimants submit that a trust can be implied from the conduct and intention of the parties.

16. The intention of the parties (meaning Terry and the Claimants) was that the funds would ultimately be used to purchase a new home for the First Claimant to live in. … …

21. It was the common intention of Terry and the Claimants that the Claimants remained the beneficiaries of the funds in the First Direct account, and this is supported by Terry’s conduct in keeping the funds separate and not treating them as his own at any point.”

40. The amended defence dated 29 July 2025, filed by Miss Fraser but treated as being the defence of both defendants, included the following matters additional to the contents of the original defence. • Santander would have required verification of the source of the cash deposits in October 2021, but the claimants have been unable to verify the source of the cash they allegedly gave Terence. • “The Claimants’ case relies heavily on circumstantial evidence and unsupported assertions. There is no direct or documentary proof that the deceased held the funds in trust or that the Claimants had any legal or beneficial interest in the account.” “The Claimants have not discharged the burden of proof necessary to establish their claim.” • After Terence was advised by David Stock & Co that a deposit of 25% would be required and that letting the property to a family member was high risk, he “decided not to proceed with any additional property purchase. He stated that he had savings of just over £30,000 and had previously experienced significant financial pressure when acquiring 18 Temple Street …” Discussion

41. As appears from this narrative, I am satisfied that the money in the First Direct account was held for the purpose of purchasing a property that was to be let out to Mrs Morgan. I am also satisfied that Terence’s intentions in that regard continued until his death.

42. If the deposits into the First Direct account, via the Santander account, did not come from the claimants, where did they come from? The defendants have not identified any bank or building society account where Terence might have held those moneys previously; anyway, as he showed himself able to make transfers from the Santander account to the First Direct account, it would be reasonable to suppose that he could have made simple transfers from another account rather than making cash withdrawals and then paying cash into the Santander account. Therefore, if the money was Terence’s, it is likely that it was held in cash.

43. In her witness statement dated 12 December 2025 Miss Fraser gives an account to the following effect. In March 2019 Terence suggested that he might buy another house, which his mother could rent. He said that he had managed to save £30,000, because his salary had increased and Miss Fraser’s salary had been used to pay the household bills. Miss Fraser told him that she thought it a bad idea: he had struggled with the pressure of paying two mortgages; the mortgage on their own house had only recently been discharged; and they were finally in a good financial position. However, she encouraged him to treat himself to a Rolex watch, which he duly bought that day from a Cardiff jeweller for £6,000. Later (the witness statement does not say when) Terence took advice on the possibility of purchasing a property with a buy-to-let mortgage and letting it to his mother, but the advice was unfavourable and he decided not to proceed. After he told his mother and sisters of his decision, Mrs Morgan and Miss Msomi continued to send him details of properties that they liked, but he commented to Miss Fraser that they were being unrealistic about what they could afford. Miss Fraser says that she has seen no credible evidence that the deposits into Terence’s bank accounts came from the claimants and she does not believe that they did. The clear implication of her witness statement is that the money had more probably been saved by Terence from his salary of about £60,000 p.a. from his employment with Network Rail. Miss Fraser gave an essentially similar account when she gave evidence at trial. (I should mention that Cassius Morgan gave evidence that he was aware that his father had £30,000 of savings—at which point is unclear—and that his father never mentioned receiving money from his mother or his sister. Cassius Morgan was only 14 years old when his father died, and I did not consider that his evidence had much probative value.)

44. I do not accept Miss Fraser’s evidence that Terence told her in March 2019 that he had £30,000 in savings of his own. First, it is very unlikely that he would have had savings of anything like that amount in March 2019. The email that he sent to Miss Fraser on 3 November 2018, 4½ months previously, shows that a weight of financial pressure had been lifted from him by the recent discharge of the mortgage by Miss Fraser’s mother. He is hardly likely to have written in those terms if he had significant reserves of cash, and it is very improbable that he had saved substantial cash in the intervening period. Second, Miss Fraser did not mention the conversation in March 2019 before she produced her witness statement in December 2025. As the foregoing lengthy recital of the correspondence and statements of case shows, when the claimants were asserting their claims, Miss Fraser did not say, “No, the money was Terence’s own and he had told me about it.” She simply responded that the claimants had not produced any persuasive evidence in support of their claims. That is also the tenor of both of her defences. In the original defence, she merely says that the couple had a large disposable income; though, according to that document, the mortgage on their home had only been discharged in January 2019: she does not state that Terence had substantial savings. In the amended defence, she does refer to Terence mentioning that he had “savings of just over £30,000”; however, that was in the context of the advice received from David Stock & Co in 2022, and there was no mention of the conversation in March 2019. Third, if Terence had managed to accumulate savings of £30,000 by March 2019, after a period of substantial financial pressure, it is not explained why he had not accumulated substantially larger savings by October 2021, after he had been relieved of those pressures. Fourth, Miss Fraser does not pretend to know where the savings were held.

45. I also do not accept the evidence of Miss Fraser and Miss Morgan-Seivwright that Terence had decided not to proceed with the idea of purchasing a property in which Mrs Morgan could live. He had clearly not made that decision when he communicated with Miss Morgan-Seivwright on 17 March 2022. If, as she says, he had a single appointment with David Stock, it was very probably after that date. And text messages exhibited to the amended particulars of claim show that he was being proactive, not merely reactive, on 7 and 9 April 2022. In my judgment, the evidence supports the following conclusions. Terence originally thought of buying the property on trust for his two children. As a result of what he was told by David Stock & Co via Miss Morgan-Seivwright, he concluded that this would be unworkable. He therefore intended that the property would be solely owned by him; any benefit to his children would be by way of inheritance. He had a meeting with David Stock, as a result of which he realised that his mortgage opportunities were limited, albeit not non-existent: first, not all lenders would give a buy-to-let mortgage facility where the proposed tenant was a member of the mortgagor’s family; second, Terence would have to come up with a deposit of 25% of the purchase price, as well as the stamp duty chargeable on the purchase. I think it not unlikely that Terence commented to Miss Fraser that his sisters were being unrealistic regarding what could be afforded. However, I do not accept that his enthusiasm for the idea of the property purchase cooled or that he was being pushed by others to continue with the project against his will.

46. Accordingly, I see no force in the objection, raised by the defendants in evidence and put to the claimants in cross-examination, that the claimants’ failure to ask Terence to return the money showed that they did not believe it to be theirs. The objection would have merit only if the supposed plan for a property purchase had been abandoned some time before Terence died. That was not the case.

47. This still leaves the linked questions of the source of the cash deposits and the existence of the alleged trust.

48. Mrs Morgan’s witness statement (unlike the lengthy and discursive amended particulars of claim) is short and sweet: “I can confirm that I gave £20,000 to my son Terence David Morgan to be held on trust to purchase a property for me, which was placed into a First Direct bank account including the term ‘house deposit’.” The evidence exhibited in support is the exchange of text messages with Miss Msomi on 14 October 2021. In her oral evidence, Mrs Morgan affirmed the truth of the contents of the amended particulars of claim. In cross-examination, she stated that the £20,000 had been held in cash at her house and had been collected from her by Miss Msomi to give to Terence. She said that this followed discussions between herself and Terence, in which it had been agreed that she would give him the money to be used for the sole purpose of purchasing a property for her to live in if something suitable could be found. Mrs Morgan was asked how she had obtained this large amount of cash. At first, she said that she did not need to explain: it was her cash, and how she acquired it was irrelevant. When told that she had to answer, unless any answer she gave was liable to incriminate her, she said that she had been saving cash over the years from money that had been given to her by family members.

49. Miss Msomi’s witness statement said: “I confirm that I gave £10,000 to my brother Terence David Morgan to hold on trust in search of buying a house for our mother Sharon Ann Morgan, which was placed into a First Direct bank account with deposits including the term ‘house deposit’ and the First Direct Bank credentials were left in my possession by my brother Terence.” She, too, affirmed the truth of the contents of the amended particulars of claim. In cross-examination, she said that there was an oral agreement between herself, Terence and Mrs Morgan that the money would be used to buy a home for Mrs Morgan, and that Terence asked her to set up the First Direct account specifically for the purpose of holding the money for that property. Her contribution of £10,000 came from Khaya’s account: she said that Terence told her that the property, when purchased, would be Khaya’s investment too. As mentioned above, Miss Msomi’s evidence was that the £1,320 was quite separate and was for the purpose of paying for Khaya’s dance events.

50. The salient points from the other evidence for the claimants may be summarised as follows. Zena Morgan said that, although she had not seen any cash being handed over, she had been involved in numerous conversations with Terence, Mrs Morgan and Miss Msomi, which made it clear to her that the £20,000 belonged to her mother and the £10,000 to her sister and that Terence was holding the money on trust for them for the purpose of buying a house for Mrs Morgan. In his witness statement, David John Morgan, too, said that he had discussed the matter with the claimants, Zena Morgan and Terence himself, all of whom were clear that the money was the claimants’ and was being held for the purpose of purchasing a house for Mrs Morgan. In his oral evidence, Mr Morgan was vague about conversations; he said that what was said went in one ear and out of the other, and he thought that Terence had received £20,000 or £30,000 from Mrs Morgan and more from somewhere else—he did not know where. He said that he did not witness any declaration of trust. Penny Morgan’s statement says, among other things, “I spoke directly with Terence. He told me that he was looking after £20,000 for his mother and £10,000 for his sister, and that the funds were to be used for the purchase of a home for Sharon.” The witness statement of Kelly Johnson is to similar effect. Neither Penny Morgan nor Kelly Johnson gave oral evidence, so their written evidence could not be tested.

51. There is one further piece of evidence relied on by the claimants, namely that very shortly before his death Terence borrowed £20,000 from Santander, apparently by way of a remortgage of the home he shared with Miss Fraser. The fact of that borrowing was not disputed. The claimants contend that Terence would not have borrowed the money if he had believed that the £30,000 in the First Direct account was his own. Miss Fraser’s evidence was that the loan was taken out because Terence wanted to carry out some works to their home before letting it out, and that the money in the First Direct account was needed to put their son through private schooling in Dubai.

52. In the light of all the evidence, I see no difficulty in principle with the claimants’ case. A trust of money is not required to be created or evidenced in writing; the present case does not concern a trust of an interest in land. No particular form of words is required for the creation of a trust, and the word “trust” need not be used. What matters is whether, as a matter of substance and effect, there was a clear intention that there would exist what amounts to a trust. In the present case, this would be satisfied if a particular claimant delivered cash to Terence on the common understanding that it was not his to do with as he liked but was to be applied only for a specific purpose, namely the acquisition of a dwelling in which Mrs Morgan would reside. As I have already indicated, I do not accept that Mrs Morgan was intended to become the beneficial owner of the dwelling once it was purchased; in that regard, the suggestion in correspondence (see paragraph 26 above) that the intention was that Mrs Morgan would “own her [own] home” is contradicted by the contemporaneous evidence. But, on the claimants’ case, the money was advanced on the basis that Terence held it only for use in a specific purpose: it was not a gift or a loan; he was not entitled to do with it as he wished; if he had decided that he would not purchase a property, he would have had to return the money. In my judgment, that suffices, in principle, for a trust. But the question remains as to the source of the money.

53. I turn first to Mrs Morgan’s case. Although I find on the balance of probabilities that £20,000 of the balance in the First Direct account represented cash that had been physically delivered from Mrs Morgan to Terence via Miss Msomi, I am not persuaded that the cash was the beneficial property of Mrs Morgan. She was, to say the least, very reluctant to give an explanation of how she came to own such a large amount of cash. The explanation that she eventually gave, when pressed, to the effect that over some years she had put aside money that had been given to her from time to time by family members as birthday presents and such-like, was not, in my view, persuasive. Mrs Morgan’s own evidence was that she was on state benefits. The unchallenged evidence of Miss Fraser was that when Terence bought 18 Temple Street in about 2007 Mrs Morgan and Mr Morgan senior were on state benefits, that the reason for his purchase of the property was that they were struggling to meet their mortgage repayments, and that thereafter they paid him rent by way of housing benefit. There is no evidence that Mrs Morgan’s financial position improved in the following 14 years or so. Frankly, I do not believe her assertion that she had managed to put aside £20,000 in cash from her own money; nor do I believe the evidence of her highly partisan daughters that the money was indeed hers. In my view, it is more likely that the money, albeit held in cash at Mrs Morgan’s home, was Terence’s. The weight of the evidence indicates that he was the financial mainstay of the family and took upon himself, at some emotional cost, responsibility for supporting others. The mortgage on his own home had been discharged approximately three years before the First Direct account was opened. He was earning well from his employment, and Miss Fraser also earned and had some money of her own. There is evidence that Terence had latterly been doing some additional work on a private basis; it is likely that at least some of this work was remunerated in cash. There were probably other sources of income, though it is impossible to know how much they produced: Miss Fraser’s evidence was that Terence would buy and sell via auction and eBay; and, although I do not accept the suggestion that Terence had a gambling problem, the bank statements show that he did give his custom to bookmakers—it is quite possible that some winnings were preserved in cash. All of this seems to me to be a more likely source of the cash than Mrs Morgan’s own savings. I also bear in mind that Terence clearly did not intend that Mrs Morgan should have a beneficial interest in the property that was to be purchased.

54. In respect of Mrs Morgan’s claim, I have considered a further matter, namely the evidence that, after the deposits into the First Direct account, Terence borrowed a further £20,000 from Santander. This has not caused me to conclude that he did not consider himself the owner of the £20,000 deposited into the First Direct account. That deposit had been made for a specific purpose, namely the purchase of a property for his mother to live in. All the family members knew that purpose. Terence never resiled from that purpose. Therefore the money was not truly available for any and all uses, even if Terence believed it to be his own property. If he wanted money for the purposes identified by Miss Fraser, or for other purposes, he would have to find it elsewhere.

55. Accordingly, I reject Mrs Morgan’s claim.

56. I have come to a different conclusion in respect of Miss Msomi’s claim. On the one hand, the evidence to establish a direct link between cash held by her and cash deposited in the Santander account is not as strong as in the case of Mrs Morgan. On the other, however, she does provide clear evidence of a source of cash at the beginning of September 2021. She was the only person other than Terence to have full access to the First Direct account. And she was actively assisting in the search for a property for Mrs Morgan. After some hesitation, I have concluded on the balance of probabilities that she was the other source of the cash deposits into the Santander account and thence into the First Direct account. I also accept that the money was advanced on the basis that it was not to be Terence’s beneficially but was to be used solely for the purpose of acquiring a property in which Mrs Morgan would reside, and that it was accordingly held by Terence on trust. In this connection, three points arise. 1) There is a question as to the amount to be attributed to the trust. Whatever was withdrawn from Khaya’s TSB account, I am satisfied only that £9,800 of it was paid to Terence for use as a property deposit. 2) The money came from Khaya’s account. An argument against connecting the withdrawals from her account with the deposits in Terence’s account is that Terence appears to have intended that only his own children should benefit from ownership of the property to be bought. As already noted, Miss Msomi’s evidence was to the effect that Terence told her that the property would be an investment for Khaya too, but that is not reflected in his messages to Miss Morgan-Seivwright. In the end, I have not found this to be a compelling reason for rejecting the conclusion that money from Khaya’s account was used to fund the intended deposit on the house purchase. At the time, this was a close-knit family, among whose members there was a trusting and loving relationship. I think that everyone was probably content that Terence would ensure that Khaya did not lose out. 3) In the absence of an assurance that Khaya would have a beneficial interest in the property, it was hardly proper that her money was used in this manner. Any recovery made by Miss Msomi will itself be held on trust for Khaya, who had a beneficial interest in the money paid into the First Direct account.

57. Accordingly, Miss Msomi’s claim succeeds to the extent of an initial deposit of £9,800. Summary and Conclusions

58. I am satisfied that the cash deposits into the Santander account and subsequently transferred into the First Direct account were for the purpose of buying a house that would be tenanted by Mrs Morgan. Terence’s intention was not that his mother would own the house: she would have it as her home, but it would be an investment for his children, Miss Morgan-Seivwright and Cassius Morgan.

59. I find that £20,000 of the cash came, physically, from Mrs Morgan; by this, I mean that she had that amount of cash in her possession and handed it over so that it could be placed in Terence’s bank account.

60. However, Mrs Morgan has not proved on the balance of probabilities that she was the beneficial owner of the cash. In fact, I think it more likely that the cash belonged to Terence.

61. Therefore, Mrs Morgan’s claim will be dismissed.

62. I find that the £9,800 cash paid into the Santander account on 15 October 2021 was delivered to Terence by Miss Msomi and had been withdrawn by her from a bank account in the name of her daughter, Khaya. I also find that the cash was delivered on the basis of agreed terms that Terence would hold it and would apply it only towards the purchase of a property to be lived in by Mrs Morgan. It was therefore not Terence’s money beneficially, to do with as he pleased, but was held on trust to be applied only for that purpose.

63. To that extent Miss Msomi’s claim succeeds. However, she in turn will hold any money she recovers on trust for Khaya.

64. This judgment is being handed down electronically. There will be a further hearing to determine the precise form of relief and all consequential matters, including interest and costs.