Mind the boilerplate small print for danger may lie within, warns Andrew Francis, Serle Court, in this week’s NLJ
Francis looks at Mackenzie v Cheung and another [2024] EWCA Civ 13, a Court of Appeal decision this year concerning the conveyance of the freehold title that became No 444 Selsdon Road, Croydon. He sets out the lessons to be learned.
The case provides ‘an example of the application of three important principles when we are advising upon the meaning and effect of legal documents’. Francis sets out the three principles and explains each in turn.
As for those boilerplate terms, he writes: ‘Traps are often hidden in them. Their presence is frequently camouflaged by their location at the end of long sets of terms or at the end of lengthy documents. So far as we do see them, we treat them (dangerously) with a lawyer’s insouciance.’
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