A lease contained an option to renew. Both the lease and the reversion were assigned for value. The assignee of the lease exercised the option and a new lease and counterpart were engrossed. The tenant executed the counterpart. The assignee of the reversion, a company, sealed the lease, but then sought to avoid granting the lease.
Held: Buckley J said that where a deed is intended to be executed in duplicate to give effect to a transaction by which each of the two parties undertakes obligations to the other, prima facie a party executing the lease does so in escrow conditionally on the other party executing his part of the lease. J Buckley said that he was bound to treat an instrument complying with section 74(1) as ‘having been not only sealed but also delivered.’ When a party has delivered a document in escrow, he must await the event to see whether or not the condition is fulfilled.
Buckley J
[1960] 1 WLR 549, [1960] 2 All ER 314
Law of Property Act 1925 74(1)
England and Wales
Cited by:
Not followed – Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council v Torkington CA 31-Oct-2003
The proposed landlord had sealed the lease, but the tenant was to seal and deliver his part by a certain date. The respondent purported to complete the lease later.
Held: Under the 1985 Act completion would require writing, intention and . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Land
Updated: 19 November 2021; Ref: scu.188669