Stewart v. Metcalf

Citations

• 68 Ill. 109

Syllabus

<p>1. Specific performance—default of vendee in collateral undertaking. The default of a purchaser of land in the performance of a separate contract, though collateral to the contract sought to he enforced, and entered into at the same time, and having relation to the same subject matter, will be no bar to a bill to specifically enforce the contract of sale.</p> <p>3. So, where a party sold a tract for $600, $300 of which was acknowledged to have been paid in the vendor’s written agreement to convey, upon payment by the vendee of two notes of the vendor to a third party, amounting to $300, and it appeared that $300 of the sum recited as paid, was the price of a town lot, to be conveyed by the vendee to the vendor, which was refused by the former on the ground of there being other indebtedness of the vendor which was a lien upon the land sold, and thereupon a new arrangement was entered into by which the vendor gave the vendee his notes for the amount- of such indebtedness, and received from him a separate obligation to convey the town lot upon payment of these last notes, it was held, on bill for specific performance as to the land, by parties succeeding to the vendee’s equities, that it was not proper to require them to pay the price of the town lot which the vendee had failed to convey, with interest on the same.</p> <p>3. Estoppel—by recitals in contract. In the absence of fraud, a party to a written contract will be estopped from averring anything against the deliberate recitals and admissions contained in the same, especially when it will prejudice and work injury to others who have acted in good faith upon the belief of the facts as stated in such contract.</p> <p>4. Thus, where a vendor of land gave the vendee a written contract reciting the sale, the payment in hand of §300, and agreeing to convey the land upon the vendee’s payment of the further sum of §300, in two notes of the vendor, then in the hands of third parties, and the vendee transferred his right