Grijns v Grijns [2025] EWHC 1413 (Ch): a proprietary estoppel case note

02/09/2025

By Zachariah Pullar

According to Sir Edward Coke in his Institutes on the Laws of England, “every estoppel ought to be reciprocal, that is, to bind both parties; and this is the reason, that regularly a stranger shall neither take advantage, nor be bound by the estoppel” (quoted in, e.g., Gaunt v Wainman (1836) 3 Bing NC 69, p. 70). In developing the doctrine of proprietary estoppel as part of English land law, courts have needed to address the third-party consequences of the rights to which that doctrine gives rise. The recent case of Grijns v Grijns [2025] EWHC 1413 (Ch), a decision of Master Bowles (sitting in retirement) (“the Judge”) handed down in June this year, engages this issue in a novel and interesting way, as well as what it means to be “bound by” an estoppel, and the consequences thereof.

Case overview

The focus in Grijns is the claimant, Andrew Grijns’ claim in proprietary estoppel in relation to 31 Bury Walk – a four-bed Georgian townhouse in Chelsea, London, worth some £3.85m (“the Property”). Andrew’s parents, Mr and Mrs Grijns, purchased the Property in 1994, sole legal title to which passed to Mrs Grijns on Mr Grijns’ death in 2019.

Andrew, one of four brothers, had been allowed by his parents to occupy the Property since 1999. Latterly, however, Mrs Grijns decided she needed to liquidate the Property to enable her to purchase a home in the US. Andrew refused to vacate or cooperate in the Property’s marketing and sale; and in dramatic events taking place on 10 June 2023 involving locksmiths, crowbars, and the police, Mrs Grijns and Andrew’s three brothers descended on the Property, eventually gaining forcible entry, thus precipitating Andrew’s claim.

Andrew’s main proprietary estoppel claim asserted that Mrs (and Mr) Grijns made various oral assurances to him that he would be able to live in the Property indefinitely, on which he relied to his detriment, generating an estoppel equity in his favour that should be satisfied by the grant of a two-thirds beneficial share of the Property. Andrew also brought further claims arising out of the events of 10 June 2023: a claim in trespass, which failed; and, by late amendment, a further claim, described by the Judge as follows at §4:

“Andrew also contends that the conduct of his mother and brothers, in respect of their forcible entry, constituted a breach of [Mrs Grijns’] equitable obligations, owed to him, by reason of and arising out of his equity; those obligations being to recognise and satisfy his equity and not, therefore, to take steps to terminate, or interfere with, his occupation of the Property, in contradiction of the rights arising out of his equity and such as to preclude, or interfere with, the satisfaction of those rights. By reason of that breach and in addition to his rights at common law, Andrew asserts an entitlement to equitable compensation.”

The focus of this Note is not the proprietary estoppel claim – which the Judge dismissed on the facts – but the Judge’s (obiter) analysis of this claim, hereafter “the Equitable Compensation Claim”. The Judge held he would (had Andrew succeeded in establishing an estoppel equity) have allowed the Equitable Compensation Claim, reasoning as follows (§§284-288).

First, the Judge considered the issue of the legal status of an unsatisfied estoppel equity. As he recognised, this issue is usually discussed in relation to whether a person (such as a successor in title) who acquires a right in relation to the relevant property, to which the estoppel equity relates, can be bound by that equity. The Judge identified two approaches to this question.

The first is that the estoppel equity is simply that – an equity – until such time as a court determines how it should be satisfied, and any successor, subject to the applicable priority rules, simply takes subject to that “inchoate” equity. This is a common view of an estoppel equity’s status before a court order (shared, e.g., by the Law Commission in its research and consultation materials leading to the Land Registration Act 2002, s.116): it is itself a proprietary right, separate from the right ultimately granted in satisfaction thereof, capable of binding successors in title.

The second approach – which the Judge preferred – essentially relates back, to the point at which the equity arose, the existence (at least in equity) of the substantive right that the court would grant in satisfaction of the estoppel equity, “even if the right was not known to exist, in that particular form, until it was declared by the court” (§286). The Judge relied on dicta of Browne-Wilkinson J in Re Sharpe [1980] 1 WLR 219, at p. 225, that the court does not, by its order, create the substantive right arising in response to a proprietary estoppel; but declares its existence (there, an equitable interest under a constructive trust) as at the date when the facts generating the equity took place: “The right”, according to Browne-Wilkinson J, “must have arisen at the time of the transaction in order for the plaintiff to have any right the breach of which can be remedied”. 

From this, the Judge resolved that – had an equity arisen in Andrew’s favour as at 10 June 2023 which would have been satisfied by the grant of an interest protecting his occupation of the Property – that interest, “though undeclared, would have subsisted, in equity, on that day, such that [Mrs Grijns] and her sons’ conduct in breaking into the Property would have been in breach of that equitable right”. The Judge thought this provided a principled basis for protecting Andrew’s potentially vulnerable position in the meantime, before a court order in his favour.

Comment

Grijns, it seems, is the first case to raise the issue, in quite the way framed by the Equitable Compensation Claim, of what consequences flow from interference by the promisor (and, possibly, third parties) with an estoppel beneficiary’s equity – and, more generally, of the status of his rights – before that equity has been satisfied by a court order. As the Judge recognised, he was answering a question of principle: §284. Within the space available in this Note, the following two points are worthy of mention.

First, on his analysis (as above), the Judge would have been prepared to ground Andrew’s entitlement in principle to equitable compensation (against Mrs Grijns) in the substantive (equitable) rights he would have acquired in satisfaction of his equity, which are posited to exist at the point at which the estoppel equity arose. This would appear to work on the specific facts of Grijns, where the remedy sought was a declaration that Andrew was a two-thirds beneficiary behind a trust of land. As explained by Browne-Wilkinson J in Re Sharpe (where, as above, the right claimed was an equitable interest under a constructive trust) the court’s role is not to create, but to declare the interest which came into existence when the relevant underlying facts occurred. This, of course, is what happens in ‘common intention constructive trust’ cases; and, in some early proprietary estoppel cases, it is expressly recognised the relevant facts were such as also to give rise a constructive trust (e.g., Kinane v Mackie-Conteh [2005] EWCA Civ 45). If, therefore, Mrs Grijns (on the counterfactual) held her legal title to the Property partially on constructive trust for Andrew when the events of 10 June 2023 took place, Mrs Grijns could straightforwardly be said to have breached her trust obligation vis-à-vis Andrew, with the usual consequences (such as a right in principle to claim equitable compensation). In this scenario, the estoppel equity would appear simply to represent a right to seek and obtain the appropriate declaration from the court.

However, this would arguably have been more difficult had a different remedy been in play, such as an outright transfer to Andrew of Mrs Grijns’ legal title to the Property. On the Judge’s approach, the existence of the substantive equitable proprietary right would again be related back to the point at which the equity arose. Dicta can be found providing some support for this (e.g., Voyce v Voyce (1991) 62 P & CR 290, p. 294). However, a difficulty with this is that, here, the court would by its order necessarily create something that did not previously exist: the legal obligation to convey the fee simple to Andrew. It is strictly the existence of that legal duty that (on this example) gives rise to the relevant equitable interest of the sort needed to support a claim for equitable compensation, an ‘equitable version’ of the legal right (effectively, on this example, an ‘estate contract’: see, e.g., Walsh v Lonsdale (1882) 21 Ch D 9).

Until that point, Andrew might only be described as having – represented by his estoppel equity, in common, generally, with so-called ‘mere equities’ – a power to acquire such an equitable property right, by seeking the appropriate court order, corresponding with Mrs Grijns’ liability thus to coming under the necessary obligation to transfer her legal title to Andrew (see, e.g., Snell’s Equity at [2-006]). The crucial point is that, until that happens, it is difficult to see how Andrew can be said yet to have the benefit of those rights themselves, or how Mrs Grijns can have yet come under any obligation – as opposed to a liability – to Andrew (e.g., “to recognise and satisfy his equity”: §4, above), capable of grounding a right to claim equitable compensation or otherwise. The sort of retrospective ‘relation-back’ of the substantive equitable property rights/duties necessary to ground such a cause of action in this scenario appears not to be supported by the dicta in Re Sharpe, above, and (to the author) otherwise difficult to justify – though it does have academic support (see, e.g., Ben McFarlane, ‘Proprietary Estoppel and Third Parties After the Land Registration Act 2002’ (2003) 62(3) CLJ 661).

Second, though much of the judgment dealing with the Equitable Compensation Claim refers only to Mrs Grijns’ liability to pay equitable compensation as a result of the events of 10 June 2023 (as promisor, and putative trustee), there are points where the Judge refers as well to Andrew’s brothers’ liability to pay it (e.g. at §161). This is not otherwise analysed, and – applied literally – would be a surprising proposition. Whilst equitable interests (such as under a trust of land) can clearly affect successors in title to the legal estate to which the trust relates, or people acquiring rights under it such as mortgagees, generally they are not enforceable against the world in the same way legal property rights are (e.g., Akers v Samba [2017] UKSC 7, §82). Andrew’s brothers are ‘strangers’ to the estoppel (and the trust). It would be necessary to allege and make findings supporting some sort of accessory liability against them, such as dishonest assistance, of which the facts of Grijns would not appear to be capable(not least because the existence of the trust was as yet undeclared; see also e.g. §§125, 129, 296).

Conclusion

Various other points might be raised (such as what other conduct by promisors/third parties might be said to “preclude, or interfere with, the satisfaction of [an estoppel beneficiary’s] rights”; or how any equitable compensation would fall to be quantified). It remains to be seen how these and other such points are raised in future cases, if and when they fall specifically to be decided and subjected to closer scrutiny. If the Judge’s obiter analysis of the Equitable Compensation Claim is correct, this (at least) is likely to have practical implications for those embroiled in actual or prospective proprietary estoppel litigation as regards the possible consequences of interfering with the occupation (and (future) rights) of potential estoppel beneficiaries pending any court order, with, in the meantime, all the attendant uncertainties considered above.

To stay updated please follow us on LinkedIn