The House of Lords has recently handed down its judgment in Thorner v Majors and others [2009] UKHL 18; The Times, 26 March 2009.

The case concerns the doctrine of proprietary estoppel and will henceforth be the leading case on the application of that doctrine in the non-commercial context. It is to be contrasted with the House of Lords’ decision in Cobbe v Yeomans Row Management Ltd [2008] 1 WLR 1752 which concerns the application of proprietary estoppel in a commercial context.