The seller of some apartments sought a declaration that it had correctly forfeited a deposit paid to it after the buyer defendant failed to comply with a completion notice. The defendant said that the calimant was itself in repudiatory breach, and not entitled to serve the completion notices and forfeit the deposits. The seller had substituted a different kind of noise insulation, but said this was a minor variation allowed under the contract. It was also said that the seller had not complied with pre-occupation planning conditions.
Held: At the date of the completion notice, the planning conditions had not been discharged. The developer’s ‘confident and justified expectation that a requirement will be satisfied is simply not the same thing as the requirement being satisfied.’ The satisfaction of the conditions was a precondition for the issue of the completion notice which was accordingly invalid.
Having purported to have terminated the agreements on the basis of non-compliance with the completion notices, the defendants were entitled, as they had done to accept that repudiatory breach and to the return of their deposit.
Christopher Nugee QC J
[2010] EWHC 1951 (Ch)
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Hotgroup v RBS 2010
. .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Land, Contract
Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.423810