Dear All,

 

A short footnote on Menelaou v Bank of Cyprus  [2015] UKSC 66, as judgment today has been given in Menelaou v Bank of Cyprus UK Ltd [2016] EWHC 2656 (Ch) http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2016/2656.html, in which Master Matthews considers whether, following the point of principle decided by the Supreme Court at the earlier stage, a sale of the property should be ordered, in the light of the subrogation to the unpaid vendor’s lien. Master Matthews has ordered the sale, and notes that counsel for the family

 

[51] ‘argued that the novelty of the Supreme Court's decision in this case, coupled with the academic criticism of it to which he referred me, meant that it was not a sound basis for ordering a sale.’

 

[52] ‘I am not sure how serious this argument was meant to be. But there can be no doubt that the decision of the Supreme Court in this case was to remit this case to me to decide whether or not a sale should be ordered on the basis of the unpaid vendor's lien. It is therefore not for me, sitting here, to tell their lordships that, because academic lawyers (even famous ones) have criticised the reasoning of some of them, I should decline to order a sale, or even take that into account as a factor in the exercise of my discretion. Moreover, it is to be noted that the very criticism which Mr Warwick QC referred me to did not say that the decision that the Bank should be subrogated to the unpaid vendor's lien was wrong. On the contrary, it criticised some of their lordships' reasoning in reaching that decision, whilst pointing out that others of their lordships had reached the same decision on grounds which the academics considered entirely justified. So in my judgment the criticism takes us nowhere in any event.’

 

Best wishes,

James

 

--

James Lee

Senior Lecturer in Private Law

Director of Undergraduate Admissions and Scholarships

The Dickson Poon School of Law

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Recently Published: Matthew Dyson, James Lee & Shona Wilson Stark (eds), Fifty Years of the Law Commissions: The Dynamics of Law Reform (Hart, 2016) http://www.bloomsburyprofessional.com/uk/fifty-years-of-the-law-commissions-9781849468572/