The court was asked to consider the effectiveness of an unsigned assignment of a chose in action: ‘An assignment is only a legal assignment if it complies with s.136 of the 1925 Act. What that section requires is that there should be an ‘absolute assignment by writing under the hand of the assignor (not purporting to be by way of charge only) of any debt or other legal thing in action.’ As I have said above, none of the assignments executed before November 2003 was signed by Mr James personally; instead they were all signed in his name by his wife with his authority. Were those assignments ‘under the hand of the assignor’? In my judgement, they were not. In my opinion, these words should be given their plain and ordinary meaning, and so construed, they require that the assignor himself should sign the assignment. They do not admit of the possibility of someone other than the assignor signing in the assignor’s name.’
Judges:
Field J
Citations:
[2004] EWHC 2674 (QB)
Links:
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Trustee Solutions Ltd and others v Dubery and Another ChD 21-Jun-2006
The rules of a pensions scheme were altered. It was required that any such alteration be in writing, but the trustees had not signed the document creating the amendment.
Held: The words ‘writing under hand’ clearly required a signature, and . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract
Updated: 22 August 2022; Ref: scu.236719