[2025] UKUT 178 (LC)

I have set aside the FTT’s decision. It is abundantly clear that the evidence all pointed to the fact that the parties to the TR1 intended to sell and buy only 39 Gordon Place.

Should the Tribunal substitute its own decision and order rectification? I see no reason why it should not do so. The respondent will suffer no prejudice thereby; she has made no use of the Disputed Land and she did not pay for the Disputed Land. The delay was understandable: Mr Saood did not discover the mistake until 2022 because there was no reason why it should occur to him that the Disputed Land was no longer in the appellant’s ownership. Equally it cannot have occurred to the respondent that it had been transferred to her until she was alerted to that fact by Neale Turk LLP after Mr Saood’s discovery.

Rectification is an equitable remedy and the appellant must come to court with clean hands. In the course of preparing for the appeal Mr Grant KC established that 39 Gordon Place was in fact composed of not three but of four titles; a thin sliver of land along the northern boundary remains in the appellant’s ownership in title BK432176. It seems that the eastern half of the land comprised in that title number was transferred to the new owner of 9 Thornton Road, but the western half was not transferred along with 39 Gordon Place. The appellant is ready and willing to transfer it to the respondent. Neale Turk LLP have written to Ms Gabriella Sam-Yorke more than once to alert her to this, and the point is set out in Mr Grant KC’s skeleton argument. No response has been made to that point on the part of the respondent. At the hearing of the appeal I asked Ms Gabriella Sam-Yorke what she thought ought to be done about the newly discovered sliver of land; she said that of course it should be transferred to the respondent because this was a sale of a house and this land is part of it.

There is no application before me in relation to BK432176 and I make no order about it. But I order that the TR1 of 39 Gordon Place is to be rectified by the inclusion of a plan and by words to make it clear that the transfer was of part only of BK402889. I ask the appellant’s solicitors to provide a draft order.