Spencer Bower Reliance-Based Estoppel, 5th Edition

Spencer Bower Reliance-Based Estoppel, 5th Edition By Piers Feltham, Tom Leech, Peter Crampin, Joshua Winfield

Spencer Bower: Dependence Estoppel, formerly known as Estoppel by Representation, is a well-known and long-established textbook on the doctrines of reliance-based estoppel, which prohibits a party from changing his position if he has induced another to rely on it to the point where the other will suffer as a result of the change.

Since the fourth edition in 2003, the House of Lords has decided two proprietary estoppel cases, Cobbe v Yeoman's Row Property Management Ltd and Thorner v Major, whose combined effect is identified as helping to define a criterion for a reliance-based estoppel founded on a representation, namely that the party estopped actually intends or is reasonably understood to intend the estoppel raiser to act in reliance on the representation. Other changes in the doctrine of proprietary estoppel necessitated a complete rewrite of the corresponding chapter in this version, Chapter 12.

Thorner v Major also validates the fourth edition's statement that any reliance-based estoppel based on a representation must be unequivocal. Other viewpoints expressed in the fourth edition have been upheld, including the recognition that an estoppel can be based on a representation of law (Briggs v Gleeds), that a party can preclude itself from denying a proposition by contract as well as another's reliance (Peekay Intermark Ltd v Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd and Springwell Navigation Corp v JP Morgan Chase Bank), and that an estoppel by deed binds by agreement or declaration under the (Prime Sight Ltd v Lavarello).

The editors of Spencer Bower Reliance-Based Estoppel adopt Spencer Bower's unifying project by identifying reliance-based estoppels as aspects of a single principle preventing a change of position that would be unfair due to responsibility for prejudicial reliance, as reflected in the change of title, and distinguishing the foundation of estoppels that bind by deed and by contract. The following conclusions follow: that reliance-based estoppels have common requirements of responsibility, causation, and prejudice; that estoppel by representation of fact, like the other reliance-based estoppels, is a rule of law; that the result of estoppel by representation of fact may, accordingly, be mitigated on equitable grounds to avoid injustice; that the result of an estoppel by convention depends on whether the subject matter is factual, promissory, or proprietary; and that the result of an estoppel by convention; that an estoppel as to a right in or over property generates a discretionary remedy; and that the prohibition on using a promissory estoppel as a sword should be interpreted as an application of the defence of illegality, namely that an estoppel may not be used to unacceptably subvert a statute or rule of law.

TABLE OF CONTENTS of Spencer Bower Reliance-Based Estoppel, 5th Edition