Cases - Toulmin v Millar
Record details
- Name
- Toulmin v Millar
- Date
- (1887)
- Citation
- 3 TLR 836
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Estate agency - Settled Land Act 1882
- Summary
-
In 1880 Toulmin, the tenant for life of a settled estate, engaged Millar to let the property. Millar gave Toulmin a scale of charges for both selling and leasing which contained a note that, when property was let to a tenant who afterwards became the purchaser, the commission on selling would be charged, less the amount of commission on letting. Toulmin put the paper in his pocket without reading it. Millar introduced a person who took a lease to see how he liked it. Then the Settled Land Act 1882 was passed. This gave a tenant for life the power to sell. So Toulmin sold the property to the tenant for £70,000 without the intervention of Millar.
The House of Lords held that the agent was simply employed to let and so was not entitled to commission on the subsequent sale.