Tibor Matyas v Peter Daniel: High Court rejects beneficial interest and inheritance claims over London properties

A High Court judge has dismissed all claims brought by a man who alleged he held a 50% beneficial interest in two London properties forming part of the estate of his late partner, a Chinese-born clothing designer who died in 2017.

In Tibor Matyas v Peter Daniel & Ors [2026] EWHC 1368 (Ch), Upper Tribunal Judge Andrew Scott, sitting as a deputy High Court judge, ruled against the claimant, Tibor Matyas, on both his constructive trust claim and his application under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, finding that the latter failed on three separate and independent grounds.

The properties and the claim

Huan Liu, known as Chris, died on 10 April 2017 at the age of 47, leaving two sole-name properties, Kinetica Apartments in Hackney and Flat 4, 13 Atkins Square, as well as a jointly held buy-to-let investment, 37 Thornbury Close, which he owned with Mr Matyas as beneficial joint tenants. Chris's will left Kinetica to his brother and parents and granted Mr Matyas a 25% share in Atkins Square. Mr Matyas contended he was entitled to a 50% beneficial interest in both sole-name properties, arguing that he and Chris had operated their personal and professional lives as an indivisible unit.

Constructive trust: documentary evidence fatal to the claim

Applying the principles in Stack v Dowden [2007] 2 AC 432, the judge found no evidence of any common intention that the properties were to be held jointly. He placed considerable weight on a TR1 transfer form signed by Mr Matyas in April 2011, in which he expressly confirmed that Kinetica "should always have been held in the sole name of Huan Liu" and that he had never acquired a beneficial interest in it.

The judge described Mr Matyas as "an unconvincing and unreliable witness" whose recollections were frequently contradicted by contemporaneous documents, and endorsed the approach in Gestmin SGPS SA v Credit Suisse (UK) Ltd [2013] EWHC 3560 by placing primary reliance on the documentary record. A central plank of Mr Matyas's case, an alleged £300,000-a-year consultancy arrangement with a major Chinese fashion house called Yishen, was found to be unsupported by any documentary evidence whatsoever. No contract, invoices, or emails relating to Yishen were produced.

The 1975 Act claim: three grounds of failure

On the 1975 Act application, the judge concluded that Chris was not domiciled in England and Wales at the time of his death. Despite his long residence in London, the evidence revealed a continuing and significant relationship with both China and New Zealand, where Chris held a current passport, had renewed it in 2012, and had described his nationality as New Zealander in a 2015 company annual return. The judge applied the demanding standard in Re Fuld's Estate (No 3) [1978] P 675 and found the evidence fell "far short" of clear, cogent, and compelling proof that Chris had abandoned his domicile of origin.

The judge further held that Chris and Mr Matyas had not lived together in the same household as a married couple throughout the two-year period preceding the death. Citing Baynes v Hedger [2008] EWHC 1587 and the indicia in Southern Housing Group Ltd v Nutting [2004], the court found that Chris had consistently presented the relationship to his solicitors and family as one of business colleagues, had described himself as "single" in will instructions made during the relevant period, and had given Mr Matyas's address as the Dunn Street studio rather than Kinetica in formal documents.

Even had those two hurdles been cleared, the judge concluded Chris's will had made reasonable financial provision for Mr Matyas's maintenance, noting that at the time of death Mr Matyas was 39, in good health, possessed marketable skills across several fields, and had inherited approximately 20% of the estate's value.

Permission to bring the claim out of time was also refused. The judge declined to equate Mr Matyas's position with that of the claimant in Nesheim v Kosa [2006], finding instead that the nine-year history of the litigation disclosed a "deliberate and considered" pattern of delay in the administration of the estate, for which Mr Matyas bore sole responsibility.

The beneficial interest claims and the 1975 Act application were accordingly dismissed in their entirety.