Proprietary Estoppel: The Importance of Looking Back

Abstract

In one of Lord Hoffmann's final speeches in the House of Lords, he borrowed from Hegel to remind us that: 'The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.' The observation was made in a case examining proprietary estoppel and, drawing on the judgment of Hoffmann LJ (as he then was) in Walton v Walton, this chapter explains the advantages of a "backwards-looking" model in understanding the nature and operation of the promise-based strand of proprietary estoppel applied in cases such as Thorner v Major.