Southwell v Blackburn
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
- LORD JUSTICE TOMLINSON
- LORD JUSTICE McFARLANE
- LADY JUSTICE MACUR
Areas of Law
- Property and Real Estate Law
- Equity and Trusts
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
David Southwell and Catherine Blackburn set up home together in 2002 in a house purchased solely by Southwell. Upon their relationship's end in 2012, Blackburn claimed a beneficial interest, which failed, but she succeeded in a claim of proprietary estoppel, leading to a court ordering Southwell to pay £28,500. The court determined that promises made to Blackburn by Southwell about her security of tenure were specific enough and she relied on these promises to her detriment, making it unconscionable for Southwell to deny her expectations.
Judgment
Lord Justice Tomlinson :
The Appellant, David Southwell, appeals against an Order made on 13 December 2013 by HH Judge Pearce-Higgins QC in the Worcester County Court. By that Order the judge ordered him to pay £28,500 to the Respondent, Catherine Blackburn. The Appellant and the Respondent had, in the words of the judge, set up home together in 2002 in a house in Droitwich. The house was purchased in the Appellant’s sole name with his money and with the benefit of a repayment mortgage, the liabilities in respect of which were discharged by him alone. On the breakdown of the relationship in June 2012 the Respondent claimed that the Appellant held the property for the benefit of both of them in equal shares. That claim by the Respondent to be a beneficiary of a constructive trust failed, but the judge upheld her alternative claim to an enforceable equity by operation of proprietary estoppel. The judge valued that equity at £28,500 and ordered payment of that amount by the Appellant in satisfaction thereof.
The Appellant appeals against that determination. He contends that the assurances found proved by the judge in relation to the Respondents’ security of tenure lacked the requisite specificity to engage the doctrine of proprietary estoppel. He contends also that the judge erred in finding that the Respondent suffered detriment in reliance on those assurances, asserting that such detriment as may have been initially incurred by the Respondent in giving up a secure tenancy and moving in with the Appellant was dissipated over the course of the relationship, which lasted for about nine years. Finally, the Appellant contends that the judge was wrong to find that the Appellant acted unconscionably in denying to the Respondent the right or benefit that she expected to receive. Mr Ashley Wynne, who developed these submissions both in the shape of a clear and succinct skeleton argument and in oral submissions before us, rightly recognised that the elements of proprietary estoppel are not to be regarded as self-standing or in watertight compartments and that there is an element of overlap in their consideration. Running through the evaluation of all of the elements is the requirement of unconscionability, such that the identification of promise or assurance, reliance and detriment might not of itself be sufficient to give rise to the equity.
Before the judge there was little or no dispute about the legal principles which the judge had to apply but consi