In reliance on representations made before a contract was completed, Maher demolished the building and started to erect a new one.

Whilst the mere exercise of legal right not to exchange contracts was not unconscionable, there were two additional elements which made Waltons' conduct unconscionable: a) element of urgency, b) Maher executed and forwarded on 11/11 and assumed execution by Walton was a formality.

His Lordship's solution of the problem was to hold that the promise should not itself be a cause of action, but merely the foundation of a defensive equity.

The remedy offered by promissory estoppel has been limited to preventing the enforcement of existing legal rights.

"If the object of the principle were to make a promise binding in equity, the need to preserve the doctrine of consideration would require a limitation to be placed on the remedy.

But there is a logical difficulty in limiting the principle so that it applies only to promises to suspend or extinguish existing rights.

The want of logic in the limitation on the remedy is well exposed in Mr David Jackson's essay "Estoppel as a Sword" in (1965) 81 Law Quarterly Review 84,223 at pp 241-243.