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Predicting the remedy in a proprietary estoppel claim: which route home?
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The Law Commission
1 has observed that the lack of any overarching principle in s 25 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 leaves the judge in a position of a bus driver with all the instructions on
how to drive his bus but not
where to drive it. The recent case of
Davies and Davies v Davies [2015] EWHC 15 (Ch) provides a timely reminder that the position of the chancery judge when resolving a proprietary estoppel claim may not be much better. So on what basis can the likely remedy in a proprietary estoppel claim be predicted?
Proprietary estoppel
In
Crabb v Arun District Council [1976] Ch 179 (Ch) Scarman LJ analysed a proprietary estoppel claim as raising three questions 'First is there an equity established?
2 Secondly what is the extent of the equity if one is established? And thirdly what is the relief appropriate to satisfy the equity?' What follows here largely concerns the second and third stage of the process although...
Read the full article here.
