Property Contracts: What To Do When Things Go Wrong?

The vast majority of property transactions progress from exchange to completion relatively smoothly, and title passes unhindered from seller to buyer. However, in today’s property market many buyers – whether purchasing freehold or leasehold interests - are looking to withdraw from the property transactions given the fall in property and rental values.

This course looks at the practical steps to be taken when things go wrong, both pre-and post-completion, and will cover:

• Failure to complete - Compensation - Drafting and serving the notice to complete - The perils of amending the standard conditions - The role of specific performance in today’s market
• Bringing the contract to an end - Triggering the right to ‘rescind’ (failure to complete, landlord’s consent) - The problem of delay - What is meant by repudiatory breach – and how hard is it to prove?
• Misrepresentation - What type of ‘statement’ - Proving inducement or reliance - The availability of rescission & assessing damages - Avoiding liability: do disclaimer, ‘non-reliance’ and whole agreement clauses work?
• Errors in the document - The court’s approach to construction - The role of pre-contractual negotiations - Unilateral or mutual mistake – the evidence needed

Course Dates

26/06/2012 London	09:30 - 12:45 Venue Information
29/10/2012 London	09:30 - 12:45 Venue Information

Sarah Thompson-Copsey 
is a former partner in the London property litigation practice of the firm then known as Denton Hall with over 15 years experience in commercial property disputes. She now works as a freelance legal speaker and writer. She is a co-author of Tenants’ Pre-Emption Rights: A Landlords Guide to the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, and a site editor of the Property Law website.