The vendor challenged the validity of an option agreement, saying that the consideration (one pound) was only nominal.
Held: ‘a valid option to purchase constitutes an offer to sell irrevocable during the period stated, and a purported withdrawal of the offer is ineffective. When therefore the offer is accepted by the exercise of the option, a contract for sale and purchase is thereupon constituted, just as if there were then constituted a perfectly ordinary contract for sale and purchase without a prior option agreement. The Court is asked to order specific performance of that contract of sale and purchase, not to order specific performance of a contract not to withdraw the offer: provided that the option be valid and for valuable consideration and duly exercised, it appears to me to be irrelevant to the question of remedy under the contract for sale and purchase that the valuable consideration can be described as a token payment: and so also if the option agreement be under seal with no payment, which is what I take the learned Judge to be referring to when he refers to a gratuitous option in his Judgment. While I therefore agree that a valid option to purchase constitutes an interest in the land, I do not consider, as the learned Judge appears to have thought, that that fact is necessary to his conclusion and my conclusion on what is the appropriate remedy.’
Judges:
Russell, Cairns LJJ, Sir John Pennycuick
Citations:
[1974] EWCA Civ 10, [1975] Ch 258
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from (affirmed) – Mountford and Another v Scott 1973
The plaintiff paid one pound for an option to buy property in London. The option allowed the plaintiff to acquire the property at the agreed price at any time within six months. Soon after the option was granted the defendant resiled, saying he was . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract, Equity
Updated: 12 July 2022; Ref: scu.262734