Donatio mortis causa: new signs of life? <i>Rahman v Hassan</i> [2024] EWHC 1290 (Ch)

Abstract In Rahman v Hassan [2024] EWHC 1290 (Ch), HHJ Paul Matthews held that registered land and online bank and shareholding accounts can form the subject-matter of donatio mortis causa, and that, respectively, handing over the land certificate or certain lease documents, and sharing the login/password, can suffice for ‘parting with dominion’ over them. It is suggested that difficulty regarding these assets stems from ambiguity as to whether the function of the ‘sufficient step to implement’/‘parting with dominion’ element(s) of the doctrine is to evidence donative intention or to perform a ‘transitive’ function (and, if the latter, what that function is).