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 not now prepared to sell. After the purported withdrawal of his offer, the plaintiff accepted the offer in the option and sought specific performance of the contract constituted by the option agreement and the exercise of the option. The defendant argued that since the court would not grant specific performance if the option had been granted under seal, the court ought not to do so where the consideration was merely nominal.
Held: The option should be specifically enforced, and the resultant contract enforced. The grant of the option created an equitable interest in the land from the moment it was created: ‘It is not the function of equity to protect only those equitable interests which have been created for
valuable consideration. If it were not open to the holder of an option gratuitously created to obtain an order for specific performance, it would seem impossible to assert that an option creates, as it does, an equitable interest in the land’.
Judges:
Brightman J
Citations:
[1974] 1 All ER 248, [1973] 3 WLR 884
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Appeal from (affirmed) – Mountford and Another v Scott CA 17-Oct-1974
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 . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract
Updated: 18 May 2022; Ref: scu.269958