Tevanon v Norman Brett (Builders) Ltd: 1972

Brightman J said: ‘parties could get rid of the qualification of ‘subject to contract’ only if they both expressly agreed that it should be expunged or if such an agreement was to be necessarily implied . . ‘ [W]hen parties started their negotiations under the umbrella of the ‘subject to contract’ formula, or some similar expression of intention, it was really hopeless for one side or the other to say that a contract came into existence because the parties became of one mind notwithstanding that no formal contracts had been exchanged. Where formal contracts were exchanged, it was true that the parties were inevitably of one mind at the moment before the exchange was made. But they were only of one mind on the footing that all the terms and conditions of the sale and purchase had been settled between them, and even then the original intention still remained intact that there should be no formal contract in existence until the written contracts had been exchanged.’
Brightman J
(1972) 223 EG 1945
England and Wales
Cited by:
CitedSherbrooke v Dipple 1980
Parties to a conveyancing context can get rid of the qualification ‘subject to contract’ only if either they both expressly agree that it should be expunged or if such an agreement can be necessarily implied. . .
CitedCohen v Nessdale Ltd CA 1982
Once negotiations are begun ‘subject to contract’, that label governs all subsequent communications between the parties unless the label is expunged by express agreement or by necessary implication. . .
CitedRock Advertising Ltd v MWB Business Exchange Centres Ltd SC 16-May-2018
The parties disputed whether a contract (licence to occupy an office) had been varied by an oral agreement, where the terms prohibited such.
Held: The ‘no oral variation’ clause applied. Such clauses were in common commercial use and served a . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 20 July 2021; Ref: scu.666019