Cases - Christie Owen & Davies (t/a Christie & Co) v Jones

Record details

Name

Christie Owen & Davies (t/a Christie & Co) v Jones

Date

[1966]

Citation

EGD 439

Keywords

Estate agency - commission

Summary

The plaintiff agents were employed by the defendant to introduce a purchaser of the defendant's inn for £25,500. The agents introduced a husband and wife who were extremely interested in purchasing the inn, but would not be able to do so until they had sold their own hotel. Some months later, the defendant terminated the agency agreement and informed the plaintiffs that he was going to withdraw the inn from the market. A few weeks after this, the husband and wife team who had expressed interest in buying the inn, sold their hotel and telephoned the defendant asking if the inn was still for sale. Upon being told that it was, negotiations ensued and they bought the inn for £26,000. When the plaintiffs found out, they claimed commission from the defendant. He claimed that no commission was due because the sale took place after the agency was terminated and, in any case, the plaintiffs were not the effective cause. Having referred to the authorities, including the observations of Lord Watson in Toulmin v Millar, Mr Justice Mocatta awarded judgment to the plaintiffs.

On the question of effective cause, the judge held that this is largely a question of fact. The defendant's argument was that as the purchasers were unable to raise the finance at the time, all negotiations ceased in July and were only resumed in January because the finance became available on the sale of their hotel. The introduction, claimed the defendant, was a mere sine qua non but not the direct or effective cause. The judge did not accept this argument. The delay pending the sale was not so excessive as to deprive the introduction of its operative effect, and the provision of finance through the sale of the purchasers' property was ordinary in character and in no way due to any activity on the part of the defendant.

Mr Justice Mocatta observed that, if an agent could be deprived of commission merely by termination of the agent's mandate:

'... it would be necessary for estate agents always to protect themselves against such an easy way of depriving them of their remuneration by stipulating that their mandates should be irrevocable for specified and probably rather substantial periods of time.'