Marc Beaumont

The Supreme Court tweaks Etridge

English property law periodically produces epoch-making decisions of the highest court. In years to come, Waller-Edwards v One Savings Bank plc [2025] UKSC 22 may well become such a decision. It enjoys the respectable jurisprudential lineage of three famous House of Lords’ decisions: (i) Barclays Bank v O’Brien [1994] 1 AC 180; (ii) CIBC Mortgages v Pitt [1994] 1 AC 200; and (iii) Royal Bank of Scotland v Etridge No 2 [2002] 2 AC 773, but it also applies established principles in a novel way. In this article, Marc Beaumont considers why the Supreme Court reached the decision that it did including a look at the social policy considerations that influenced it.