WORST ENDEAVOURS
The order for transfer of the jointly owned family home by B to A will often be accompanied by A’s undertaking to use best (or reasonable) endeavours to procure B’s release from their mortgage covenants. Breach of the undertaking may well cause economic loss to B. The remedy for B is to apply for an order for sale. That could be followed by a remortgage and release, as it did in SS v RS [2023] EWFC 32 (Fam). There, B still held out for £80,000 compensation from A. The alleged loss arose from his inability to take out another mortgage and loan interest incurred as a result of a poor credit rating flowing from A’s denied default in payments under the transferred property mortgage. The application was pretty hopeless on the facts, as B accepted the wife’s means had been so limited during the period of alleged default that she had had no capacity to procure his release. Be that as it may, Sir Jonathan Cohen,
