Parol Evidence in UK Law

Moreover, in Youell v. Bland Welch and Punjab National Bank v. de Boinville it was common ground that the policies in question were intended to supersede the slips. Where it is common ground that one contract has been intended to supersede an earlier contract, it must follow that the parties' contract must be found exclusively in the later contract. Thus the earlier contract cannot be used to add to, or modify, the later contract.

The difficulty of course is that, where the later contract is intended to supersede the prior contract, it may in the generality of cases simply be useless to try to construe the later contract by reference to the earlier one. Therefore a cautious and sceptical approach to finding any assistance in the earlier contract seems to me to be a sound principle.

In such a case the Court does not require to have recourse to lawyers' devices such as collateral oral warrantly in order to seek to odduse evidence which would not otherwise be admissible. The Court is entitled to look at and should look at all the evidence from start to finish in order to see what the bargain was that was struck between the parties. The defendants gave such a promise which to my mind against this background plainly amounted to an enforceable contractual promise.

The rule has no doubt been considerably relaxed since Peirce v. Corf was decided in 1874, but I think it is still indispensably necessary, in order to justify the reading of documents together for this purpose, that there should be a document signed by the party to be charged which, while not containing in itself all the necessary ingredients of the required memorandum, does contain some reference, express or implied, to some other document or transaction.

The property may be conveyed into the name of one or other or into the names of both spouses jointly in which case parol evidence is admissible as to the beneficial ownership that was intended by them at the time of acquisition and if, as very frequently happens as between husband and wife, such evidence is not forthcoming, the court may be able to draw an inference as to their intentions from their conduct.

In my view, unless the law is to be divorced from reason and principle, the rule must be that you take the whole circumstances, leaving aside evidence about the oral contract, and see whether it is proved that the acts relied on were done in reliance on a contract: that will be proved if it is shewn to be more probable than not.

A deed could well be prepared and transmitted in contemplation of a concluded agreement so as to save time. The unchallenged evidence, however, shows that the deed in fact was not prepared until after the 2nd March, 1972, the date upon which the wife admitted before the Magistrates that the parol agreement was made.