Difference between revisions of "Property and Debt in Family Law Matters"

A constructive trust is called ''constructive'' because the claimant is asking the court to create or impose a trust on the respondent where there wasn't one before. According to the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in the 1980 case of [http://canlii.ca/t/1mjv Pettkus v. Becker], [1980] 2 S.C.R. 834, the most important case on constructive trusts, the court will impose a trust on a respondent where the claimant has been able to show that the respondent has been ''unjustly enriched'' as a result of the claimant's efforts. Unjust enrichment is shown by proving that:

''Enrichment'' means to have received a benefit or advantage, such as money or the benefit of unpaid labour or other services. ''Deprivation'' means to have lost the value that might have been otherwise received for the benefit or advantage, such as the loss of the money or the wages which might have been paid for labour or services. The deprivation must ''correspond'' to the enrichment, in the sense that the claimant was deprived of exactly the thing from which the respondent benefited. If the claimant can show these things, he or she will have established that the respondent was ''unjustly enrichment'' his or her contributions, and the court may impose a constructive trust to fix the situation.