ABSTRACT
The various statutory provisions by which the law in England and Wales has required some form of writing in contracts for the sale of land have often proved equally confusing but much less humorous. As early as 1937, the Law Revision Committee had condemned the section 40 incarnation of the formality requirement as a product of conditions which had long since disappeared and as out of step with more modern practices. Section 40 required a memorandum “of the agreement”. That is, not just the minimum information necessary to achieve a contract, but including every material term expressly agreed by the parties. In addition, the section was regarded as difficult to interpret, having acquired what Professor Barnsley described as, “a thick crustation of legal authority and judicial gloss, much of it inconsistent and unsupported by the enactment itself. In some instances, it has been the scope and interpretation of the provisions themselves which have exercised the judiciary.
