Mortgagee Powers Rhetoric

This article addresses the rhetoric of land law's interpretive community at the time of, and following, the House of Lords' decision in Boland . It is argued, contrary to the views of other commentators, that the decision was not strongly motivated by a concern to see social justice done between commercial lenders and wives but, rather, was a sensible and socially realistic application of clear statutory provisions understood within the context of land law orthodoxy. Furthermore, decisions following Boland which have been said to have sapped its strength also cohere comfortably within that community's stable rhetoric. Consequently, it cannot be argued that proportionality in human rights law requires a return to the supposed ‘high point’ of Boland – when considered carefully, the evidence, both from Boland itself and from land law's wider interpretive community, shows that such a high point did not exist.