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Article summary

Private Client analysis: The long-awaited decision in Guest v Guest has been handed down. Many had hoped it would clarify the somewhat higgledly-piggledly law in this area and provide a user-friendly rubric for practitioners. The question arises: has that been achieved? On one analysis the answer is simple—yes it has. What was once described by Lord Justice Lewison in Davies v Davies as the ‘lively controversy’ about the essential aim of the exercise when the courts assess remedies in proprietary estoppel cases has now been put to bed. In fact Lord Briggs, who wrote the majority judgment in Guest, perhaps goes even further and denies that the controversy should ever have been thought ‘lively’ in the first place. In essence, the aim of the remedy is, in Lord Briggs’ words, ‘to remedy unconscionability mainly by satisfying expectation’. The main takeaway being that the ‘fulfilment of the promise’ is ‘likely to be the starting point’ in...