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Everything you always wanted to know about TOLATA*

Date:11 MAY 2017
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Barrister and Arbitrator
*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 sale1; 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 esoteric2 and it is difficult to reconcile the case law3;
(b) the law is misunderstood...

Read the full article here.