Land Law Courework Interpretation of S.2 Lpa 1925

Q1/

In the first group meeting, before reading the actual judgment of Record v Bell [1991] the group came to the decision that the contract for the sale of the estate in land in the above case did comply with the S.2 of the law of property (miscellaneous provisions) Act 1989.

We concluded that as all the terms were clearly expressed in the contract and because the parties both signed the contract, it does satisfy the requirements set out in the S.2 LP(MP)A 1989

Furthermore, with regards to the attachment letter from the seller's solicitor to the buyer's solicitor, to produce the "proof of title" we agreed that, the letter can be recognised as being simply an evidence of an assurance and it could not be a part of the sale of land.

At this instance on the basis of the given facts and evidence, our team argued that the contract did comply with the terms of S.2 LP(MP)A 1989 and was a valid contract.

Q2/

However after reading the full judgment of the case, the group's view changed. Further study of the judgment raised the question as to why the court treated the side letter to be as a collateral contract.

According to the facts of the case it was apparent that the contract was in writing and was exchanged however the main question was whether contract fulfilled the terms of the S.2 LP(MP)A 1989 which states:

"The term maybe incorporated in document either by being set out in it or by reference to some other documents"

We agreed that in this case there was no reference made in the actual contract about the letter which got exchanged between the solicitors in relation of the proof of title. We further examined the case by applying the case of Wright V Robert where furniture was not mentioned in the contract for sale of land and how the court by relying on S.2 (4) LP(MP)A 1989 granted the equitable remedy of rectification ,and awarded the purchaser damages for breach of the rectified contract.

It was held that "it is not necessary to establish the existence of a pre-existing contract in order to obtain rectification, as long as there is a pre-existing agreement ,it would be correct to grant the remedy of rectification by reference to S.2(4 LP(MP)A 1989). Joscelyn v Nissen

The Group debated that in Record v Bell, maybe it would be an appropriate solution for the court to take an analogous approach. We agreed that, simply attaching the letter to the main contract was not sufficient, but we suggested that the court should have considered the significance of the terms contained in the letter in relation to the documentary evidence of proof and instead of treating it as a separate contract maybe the court should have just rectified it. As a result of that at this point, the group came to the second notion about the judgement and saw the possibility