The Government is keen to get “back to basics” about divorce. The Green Paper which the Lord Chancellor presented to Parliament in December 1993 invites us all to reflect on family values and is intended to provoke a “thorough national consideration” of the whole basis for divorce. It follows proposals by the Law Commission but is less than a ringing endorsement of the Commission's scheme. The Law Commission has advocated a shift from the current “mixed” system (embracing fault and no-fault grounds) to an entirely no-fault basis for divorce. Under these proposals divorce would be regarded as a neutral “process over time” and would not entail judgments into the causes of marriage breakdown. While the Green Paper gives qualified support to this idea, the Government has yet to reach a concluded view.

The law describing vendor's and purchaser's liens over personal property can only be described as baffling: there are cases to “prove” and “disprove” almost any proposition. This uncertainty is surprising. A contract of sale is one of the most basic forms of commercial activity, and an equitable lien would convert a vendor or purchaser into a secured creditor by operation of law. The advantages of such a position are self-evident, yet it remains unacceptably difficult to say when such advantages accrue. Fundamental equitable principles seem to support a simple analysis of vendor's and purchaser's liens which might eliminate some of the current uncertainties. This article describes that analysis. It concludes that one party to a sale contract has a lien over identified sale property whenever, and as soon as, all the contractual obligations assumed by that party have been carried out.