FLK1 · Contract

Equitable remedies (specific performance, injunctions)

SQE1 revision notes — the key rules, leading cases and common traps for this topic, in plain English and current to 2026.

CON.13 Equitable remedies: specific performance & injunctions

Equitable remedies are discretionary, not available as of right (unlike damages). The court will refuse them on equitable grounds even where a right is made out.

Core gateway: damages must be inadequate

Both SP and prohibitory/mandatory injunctions are granted only where damages would be an inadequate remedy. Damages are usually adequate where the claimant can buy a substitute in the market. The classic illustration that damages can be inadequate is Beswick v Beswick — the estate could recover only nominal damages, so SP was ordered to make the defendant pay the promised annuity.

Specific performance (SP)

An order compelling a party to perform its contractual obligations.

Land: SP is the typical remedy for sale of land/leases — every piece of land is treated as unique, so damages are inadequate (a general equitable principle; SP is awarded to buyer and seller given mutuality).
Unique/scarce goods: SP available for genuinely unique chattels (e.g. a rare antique). Ordinary commercial goods → damages adequate, SP refused (Cohen v Roche — Hepplewhite chairs, ordinary commercial article, refused).
Bars to SP — learn these:
- Contracts for personal services are generally not specifically enforced. For employees the bar is statutory: no court may, by specific performance of an employment contract or an injunction restraining its breach, compel an employee to do any work or attend a place to work (Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, s.236). Inadequacy of damages does not remove that bar.
- Constant supervision required — court won't order it (Co-operative Insurance v Argyll Stores — refusal to order a tenant to keep a shop open; House of Lords).
- Mutuality / want of consideration — no SP for a volunteer; "equity will not assist a volunteer."
- Hardship, mistake, misrepresentation, unfairness of conduct.

Injunctions

Prohibitory — restrains breach of a negative obligation; granted relatively readily (almost as of right where a clear negative covenant is breached).
Mandatory — compels positive action; granted more cautiously (Redland Bricks v Morris factors).
Negative covenants in personal-service contracts: an injunction may enforce a genuine negative promise even though specific performance of the positive service is unavailable, but it must not indirectly compel performance of that service. Lumley v Wagner granted an injunction restraining singing elsewhere; Page One Records v Britton refused relief that would have forced the group to retain a manager they no longer trusted or remain idle (both discussed in Lady Navigation Inc v LauritzenCool AB [2005] EWCA Civ 579, [13], [24], [29]). For employment contracts, the statutory s.236 prohibition remains controlling.

Equitable defences / discretionary bars (apply to both)

Laches — unreasonable delay.
"He who comes to equity must come with clean hands."
Hardship to the defendant, impossibility, or where the order would be futile.

Common SQE1 traps

Equitable remedies are discretionary — never "entitled to."
Damages adequacy is the threshold question, applied case-by-case (land/unique goods = inadequate).
Don't confuse SP (positive performance, many bars) with a prohibitory injunction (negative obligation, granted readily).
Personal-service contracts: no SP, but a negative covenant may be injuncted within limits.
Equitable damages under the Senior Courts Act 1981 s.50 (formerly Lord Cairns' Act) may be awarded in lieu of or in addition to SP/injunction.

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In January, a doctor negotiating the sale of his medical practice tells the buyer, truthfully, that the practice generates around £2,000 a month in income. Contracts are not signed until May. Between January and May the doctor falls seriously ill, stops practising, and the patient list collapses, so that by the time of signing the practice earns almost nothing. The doctor says nothing about this change. The buyer, still relying on the January figure, completes the purchase and then discovers the true position.

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