Estoppel by Conduct and Election

Developments since the first edition have more than justified a second. In Cobbe v Yeomans Row Management Ltd [2008] 1 WLR 1752 and Thorner v Major [2009] 1 WLR 776 the House of Lords ignored the siren call of unconscionability as either, in the former a sufficient, or in the latter a necessary element in estoppel by encouragement. In the former the House also rejected an attempt to use this form of estoppel to enforce an incomplete commercial bargain. In both cases the Lords maintained the distinction between promissory and proprietary estoppel.