The claimant asserted a constructive trust arising from an oral agreement by the defendant to sell his land to the plaintiff. It was conditional on the claimant obtaining planning permission. Pursuant to the agreement, and relying on it, the claimant paid out andpound;3,000.00 in fees.The permission, was granted. The claimant sought a declaration that the land was held on constructive trust, and that it should be vested in him on just and equitable terms, including the payment by him of the alleged agreed purchase price of andpound;40,000.00. There were extensive disputes of fact between the parties. The master had struck out a claim for specific performance the contract being void under s.2 of the 1989 Act, but did not strike out the claimant’s alternative claim to a constructive trust. The defendant appealed.
Held: Lloyd J assumed the facts alleged by the claimant. The appeal was allowed. He struck out the claim for a constructive trust. There could be no serious argument for more than a restitutionary claim for the expenditure. It would not be inequitable to limit the claimant to a restitutionary claim: ‘To the contrary it seems to me that to apply the analogy of Yaxley v Gotts to the present case where the contract is wholly executory, viewing it in terms of a contract if it had been one, in which nothing has been done other than the incurring of a relatively small expenditure by way of the obtaining of planning permission, to go from that to say that this gives the claimant an equity which can only properly be satisfied by treating it as being in the position of a purchaser under a true contract entitled to an order for the transfer of the property on condition that it paid the price, would indeed drive a coach and horses through section 2, and would be a wholly illegitimate extension to facts which do not in any way justify it, of the doctrine of constructive trust and the decision in Yaxley -v- Gotts.’
Judges:
Lloyd J
Citations:
Unreported, 19 January 2001
Statutes:
Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989 2
Citing:
Cited – Yaxley v Gotts and Another CA 24-Jun-1999
Oral Agreement Creating Proprietory Estoppel
The defendant offered to give to the Plaintiff, a builder, the ground floor of a property in return for converting the house, and then managing it. They were friends, and the oral offer was accepted. The property was then actually bought in the name . .
Cited by:
Cited – Cobbe v Yeomans Row Management Ltd and Others ChD 25-Feb-2005
Principles for Proprietary Estoppel
A developer claimed to have agreed that upon obtaining necessary planning permissions for land belonging to the respondents, he would purchase the land at a price reflecting its new value. The defendant denied that any legally enforceable agreement . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Land
Updated: 30 April 2022; Ref: scu.223730
