Hotchpot

It was used as early as 1292 as a legal term, and from the 15th century in cooking for a sort of broth with many ingredients (see Hodge-Podge soup), and so it is used figuratively for any heterogeneous mixture.

[6] This subsection states that if recognized losses from an involuntary conversion as a result of casualty or from theft, of any property used in the trade or business or of any capital asset held for more than one year, exceed the recognized gains from an involuntary conversion of any such property as a result of casualty or from theft, such losses and gains do not enter the hotchpot.

The practical effect of this subsection is that net losses from such involuntary conversions will be treated as ordinary income[8] (abolished by s1(2) Law Reform (Succession) Act 1995 in intestacy cases from 1 January 1996).

In England and Wales hotchpot was abolished for persons dying intestate from and including the first day of 1996, by section 1(2) of the Law Reform (Succession) Act 1995.

[2][9] The word would likely be shunned in the updated language divorce proceedings, which typically apply similar principles to recent large inter-marital gifts (i.e. between husband and wife).

The hotchpot rule also applies to cross-border insolvency where bankruptcy proceedings are taking place in more than one jurisdiction with respect to the same debtor.

[10] The leading case is Banco de Portugal v Waddell (1880) 5 App Cas 161 where the House of Lords held that creditors who had participated in the Portuguese bankruptcy proceedings would be permitted to participate in the English bankruptcy proceedings as well, however, they would have to account for the sums which they had received in the Portuguese proceedings, and would not be entitled to receive any distributions in England until the amount distributed to the other creditors was equal to what they had received in Portugal: "Every creditor coming in to prove under, and to take the benefit of, the English liquidation, must do so on terms of the English law of bankruptcy: he cannot be permitted to approbate and reprobate, to claim the benefit of that law, and at the same time insist on retaining as against it, any preferential right inconsistent with the equality of distributions intended by that law, which he may have obtained either by use of legal process in a foreign country, or otherwise.