UKPC 13 - Privy Council Appeal No 0102 of 2024 - Judgment

Sep 17, 2026

Uploaded by Sarah

UKPC 13 is a Privy Council appeal concerning conflicting judicial approaches to section 16 of the Registration of Deeds Act of Trinidad and Tobago. The dispute centers on deed priority for land transactions where unregistered deeds may affect purchasers for value and mortgagees without notice. The chronology involves a 1979 conveyance, a later will and deed of assent registered in 2014, and a 2015 conveyance to the Grants, leading to competing claims over title and ownership.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages19

Reading Time48 min

AccessFree to download

Judgment

Legal issues under section 16 of the Deeds Act

Chronology of conveyances, assent, and registrations

Proceedings and lower court decisions

[2026] UKPC 13 Privy Council Appeal No 0102 of 2024 JUDGMENT Jim Peter Grant and two others (Respondents) v Glenda Jackman and three others (Appellants) (Trinidad and Tobago) From the Court of Appeal of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago before Lord Briggs Lord Hamblen Lord Leggatt Lady Rose Lord Doherty JUDGMENT GIVEN ON 13 April 2026 Heard on 10 March 2026 Appellant Christophe Rodriguez Kimaada Ottley (Instructed by Allum Chambers (Trinidad)) Respondent Kiel Taklalsingh Stefan Ramkissoon Caitlyn Greene Sarah Sinanan (Instructed by JCS Caribbean Law (formerly Johnson, Camacho & Singh (Trinidad))) LORD BRIGGS: 1. This appeal from the Court of Appeal of Trinidad and Tobago raises issues as to the construction and application to particular facts of section 16 of the Registration of Deeds Act of Trinidad and Tobago (“the Deeds Act”) upon which the courts below have sharply differed. Section 16 lays down a scheme for the compulsory registration of deeds affecting land in Trinidad and Tobago, with a system of priority between such deeds based upon their time of registration, and additional protection from the effect of unregistered deeds upon purchasers for value and mortgagees without notice. 2. The detailed underlying facts are in certain respects obscure, but all that matters for the purposes of this appeal is the chronological order in which the main events occurred. Prior to 1979 Choy Min Sun (“Mr Choy”) was the legal owner of residential property known as No 14 (Lot 18) Dahlia Walk, Dorrington Gardens, St Lucien Rd, Diego Martin (“the Property”). By a deed of conveyance made on 22 November 1979 (“the 1979 Conveyance”) Mr Choy sold and transferred the Property to Lerrie Bovell, the third respondent (“Mr Bovell”), for an unspecified sum. The 1979 Conveyance was held inescrow from then until 2007, from when it took effect, but it was not registered until December 2014. 3. Meanwhile Mr Choy made a will dated 17 August 2011 . He appointed Alloy Sun (the third appellant) (“Mr Sun”) as his executor and devised the Property to his sisters, Choy Chan Sin and Glenda Jackman and his nephew’s son David Steele, who are the other appellants (“the Beneficiaries”) in equal shares. Mr Choy died on 18 February 2013 and Mr Sun obtained probate of the will on 28 February 2014. Thereafter Mr Sun made a deed of assent to the vesting of the Property in the Beneficiaries on 15 April 2014 (“the Assent”), and it was registered on 18 June 2014. Mr Bovell registered the 1979 Conveyance on 23 December 2014. 4. Mr Bovell contracted to sell the Property to Jim Peter Grant and Anna Marie James-Grant, the first and second respondents (“the Grants”), on 22 January 2015 for TT$800,000 . After investigation of his title by the Grants, Mr Bovell conveyed the Property to them on 10 June 2015 (“the 2015 Conveyance”), in exchange for the purchase price, most of which was raised by the Grants by a mortgage of the Property. Following completion, the Grants spent substantial sums on the renovation of the Property before moving in in December 2015 . They registered the 2015 Conveyance on 13 August 2015. For reasons which remain obscure, the Assent was not discovered in the course of the search of the Deeds Registry made on the Grants’ behalf in March 2015, although it had by then been registered for almost nine months. 5. The present dispute arose when Mr Sun discovered the renovations being carried out to the Property by the Grants’ contractors in late June 2015. After a letter from attorneys for the appellants in early August warning them of Mr Choy’s death and of the Assent, the Grants made a further search of the Deeds Registry which disclosed the Assent. Their first reaction was to sue Mr Bovell for the return of the purchase price and compensation for their expenditure on the renovations, on the basis (inter alia) that he had not conveyed good and marketable title to the Property to them. There was al

FAQs

What legal issue does the appeal primarily raise under the Deeds Act?

The appeal concerns how section 16 of the Registration of Deeds Act should be construed and applied to determine priority between registered deeds affecting land.

How did the priority dispute arise between the 1979 conveyance and later deeds?

Although the 1979 conveyance had been made earlier, it was registered in December 2014. The deed of assent was registered earlier in 2014, leading to a priority question under section 16(1).

What did the Court of Appeal ultimately hold regarding the deed of assent?

The Court of Appeal held that the assent could not have “trumped” the valid 1979 conveyance because the assent was not a deed for valuable consideration.

Sep 17, 2026

Uploaded by Sarah