March 2014: The Developer and the Upmarket Golf Estate
Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose” (Winston Churchill)
Whether you are a keen golfer or not (Churchill seems to have been in the latter camp), and whatever your reasons for buying property, always keep this in mind - you are bound by the written sale agreement. Consequently, never rely on any representations made to you unless they are written into the sale agreement – for almost a century, our law has been that a written contract is accepted as the sole evidence of what you have agreed: “The rule is that when a contract has once been reduced to writing, no evidence may be given of its terms except the document itself, nor may the contents of such document be contradicted, altered, added to or varied by oral evidence”.
Our courts have allowed very few exceptions to that basic principle, and a recent SCA (Supreme Court of Appeal) decision illustrates the dangers of disregarding it.
Whether you are a keen golfer or not (Churchill seems to have been in the latter camp), and whatever your reasons for buying property, always keep this in mind - you are bound by the written sale agreement. Consequently, never rely on any representations made to you unless they are written into the sale agreement – for almost a century, our law has been that a written contract is accepted as the sole evidence of what you have agreed: “The rule is that when a contract has once been reduced to writing, no evidence may be given of its terms except the document itself, nor may the contents of such document be contradicted, altered, added to or varied by oral evidence”.
Our courts have allowed very few exceptions to that basic principle, and a recent SCA (Supreme Court of Appeal) decision illustrates the dangers of disregarding it.