Cases - Dennis Reed Ltd v Goody

Record details

Name

Dennis Reed Ltd v Goody

Date

(1950)

Citation

2 KB 277

Keywords

Estate agency - commission

Summary

Agents were instructed by the defendant:

'to find a person ready, able and willing to purchase the... property for the sum of £2,825 or such other price to which I shall assent. Upon your introducing such a person I will pay you commission in accordance with the Incorporated Society's scale.'

A prospective purchaser signed a contract at an agreed price, but attached a condition that if any road charges were outstanding, the vendor would indemnify him. The vendor's solicitors drew up a draft contract with the proposed change, but then the prospective purchaser withdrew.

It was held that the prospective purchaser was not ready, willing and able to purchase at the material time. The prospective purchaser must be ready, willing and able up to the time when an enforceable contract was made or, alternatively, up to a time when the defendants refused to enter into such a contract.

(See Savills Land & Property Ltd v Kibble on the latter point.)