Title Guarantee and Trust Co. v. McDonnell

Citations

• 32 Wash. 418
• 73 P. 484
• 1903 Wash. LEXIS 438

Syllabus

<p>VENDOR AND PURCHASER-CONTRACT OF SALE ■ — • CONDITIONAL OR ABSOLUTE —• CONSTRUCTION.</p> <p>A contract for the sale of land should be construed as conditional and not absolute, when its terms provided that the vendor should convey to the purchaser the lands described on payment of the taxes due and to become due, the principal and interest of a certain mortgage then a lien on the premises, and a sum which, together with such payments, would make $20,000, to be paid in installments at fixed times; that the purchaser should pay the taxes then due on or before a certain date, but expressly exempting him from agreeing to make any of the other payments; that, if any one payment is not made when due, all previous payments shall be forfeited at the option of the vendor, but should not “affect the parties as to any of said land already sold and conveyed,” under an agreement contained in the contract which provided that the vendor would convey to third parties certain of the lands on- payment by the other party to the contract of a fixed price per acre according to location; the rate for the entire contract in case of a consummation of sale by the purchaser being about $90 per acre, while the agreement for sale in parcels fixed a rate ranging from $125 to $300 per acre.</p> <p>SAME-NOVATION-TRUST AGREEMENT-EFFECT.</p> <p>A contract between an owner of land and another provided in effect for a sale of the entire tract at a specified price, payable in installments, with condition of forfeiture, and that, on payment to the vendor or application on a mortgage on the premises, any parcel of a certain portion would be conveyed to any one designated by the purchaser. Thereafter the vendee assigned his contract to a trust company, which for a consideration was to carry out the vendee’s plans and contracts. Subsequently judgments were entered against the vendor, preventing the free transfer of the property, and a contract was executed between the trust company and the vendor, whic