|
|
Yeomans Row v Cobbe
Property joint ventures gone wrong!
By Gary Webber
Introduction
In good times when it seems that there is money to be made business men and women will often rush into actions they sometimes later regret. A classic situation is where an informal deal is made in relation to a property, perhaps owned by one party, for its development by the other, with some kind of sale / profit-sharing arrangement. However, the terms of the deal are not put into writing – or at least not sufficiently to comply with the provisions of s2 of the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989. Things go wrong and the deal falls apart. The non-owning party, who has perhaps spent a lot of money and put a lot of effort into the development, wants to know whether or not he or she has acquired a share in the property or has some other remedy. Such was the case in Yeomans Row Management Ltd v Cobbe decided by the House of Lords [2008] UKHL 55. What are the lessons to be learned?
Earlier cases
We shall come to Cobbe shortly but first another similar situation where the court has held there to be a remedy - what is called the Pallant v Morgan trust (after Pallant v Morgan [1952] Ch 43). The key facts (as set out in Cobb ... THIS IS AN EXTRACT OF THE FULL TEXT. TO GET THE FULL TEXT, SEE BELOW
|
|
|