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Everything you always wanted to know about TOLATA*
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*but didn’t ask because… if you were that interested in Chancery work you wouldn’t have become a family lawyer
'I’m a common-law wife' (No you’re not)
1. A classic trope of the horror movie is the unexpected return from the dead of something terrifying. Hence at the end of
Friday the 13th the seemingly dead serial-killer Jason suddenly emerges from a lake to drag the heroine underwater.
2. Family lawyers may experience a similar sensation when having sold or destroyed their land law and equity textbooks trust law is dragged up in one of the following applications:
(a) A ‘cohabitee’ dispute under TOLATA;
(b) A dual claim involving Schedule 1 to the Children Act and TOLATA;
(c) An application within a financial remedy claim for an interim sale
1; and
(d) An intervenor claim (see TL v ML [2006] 1 FLR 1263 at [34] [36]).
3. This creates problems:
(a) trust law is difficult. The concepts can seem esoteric
2 and it is difficult to reconcile the case law
3;
(b) the law is misunderstood...
Read the full article here.
