A Kent woman has succeeded in her challenge to a High Court master’s decision that she must sell her share of a property in Tatsfield to her former partner for £7,500.
A junior High Court judge (a High Court master) had previously found that Alison Sutliff was bound by an agreement reached shortly after she left the property at 1 Westmoreland, Tatsfield, near Westerham, in July 1996. The master ruled that Ms Sutliff must sell her share in the property to Andrew Thirkell for £7,500.
But allowing an appeal by Ms Sutliff against the earlier order, Judge Mark Hedley QC said at Londons High Court that neither party was bound by the agreement.
He ruled that the three-year limit for the agreement had expired, and that the master was wrong to infer a later agreement between the parties to extend time for fulfilment of the £7,500 sale condition.
He said he could find no evidence to indicate the existence of such an extension agreement, and continued: “This accords with the substantial justice of the case, and I am comforted that the conclusion to which I have come puts the parties in a position which any impartial observer would consider a fair one.”
The judge said that the dispute had become “highly relevant” because of the increase in property values, which had seen the value of the property rise from £85,000 to the point where it was “now worth getting on for twice that and certainly more than £150,000”.
“If she is held to her original agreement, she would stand to lose something in the order of £30,000,” the judge said.
Sutliff v Thirkell Chancery Division (Judge Mark Hedley QC) 8 June 2001.
Duncan MacPherson (instructed by Johnson Sillett Bloom) appeared for the claimant; Monty Palfrey (instructed by Hadfield & Co, of Sidcup) appeared for the respondent.
PLS News 12/6/01
