Opinion ID: 1940625
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Resulting Trusts

Text: The type of resulting trust in which plaintiffs allege the four disputed properties are held is known more specifically as a purchase money resulting trust. George T. Bogert, Trusts § 74 at 266 (6th ed. 1987). Such a trust is intent enforcing; that is, it may be implied in fact without the existence of an express agreement, written or otherwise, and may be proved by parol evidence. See id. at 267; see also Cetenich v. Fuvich, 41 R.I. 107, 116, 102 A. 817, 821 (1918). The evidence, however, must be clear and convincing and demonstrate that at the instant the estate passe[d], Campanella v. Campanella, 76 R.I. 47, 52, 68 A.2d 85, 88 (1949), a contributor of the price for the purchase of property intended that another party, who took actual title to the property, hold it in trust for the benefit of the contributor. Cutroneo v. Cutroneo, 81 R.I. 55, 59, 98 A.2d 921, 923 (1953). There is a rebuttable presumption that a claimant's contribution of the purchase price is a gift when the consideration moves from a parent or one who stands in loco parentis to the nominal purchaser   . Reynolds v. Blaisdell, 23 R.I. 16, 19, 49 A. 42, 43 (1901). [A] mere general contribution toward the purchase price by itself will not establish such a resulting trust. Cutroneo, 81 R.I. at 59, 98 A.2d at 923. Moreover, we consistently have held that when a claimant contributes only a portion of the purchase price, no resulting trust arises unless it is proven by clear and convincing evidence that it was the contributor's intention, at the time of conveyance, to correspond that partial payment with a beneficial ownership of some definite fractional part of the subject property. Id. ; Campanella, 76 R.I. at 52, 68 A.2d at 88; see O'Donnell v. White, 18 R.I. 659, 660, 29 A. 769, 770 (1894) ([W]here one furnishes only part of the amount paid    no trust results to any one who pays the residue, unless,    `the part of the purchase money paid by him in whose favor the resulting trust is sought to be enforced    [is] shown to have been paid for some specific part or distinct interest in the estate'   .) (quoting McGowan v. McGowan, 80 Mass. (14 Gray) 119, 121 (1859)).