Ward v. Lawrence

Citations

• 79 Ill. 295

Syllabus

<p>1. Real estate agents—when entitled to commissions. Where the owners of real estate employ a real estate broker to sell land for them, and give him verbal authority to make such sale, and he makes a sale and takes a written contract thereof from the purchaser, signed by him, and the names of the owners are signed thereto by one having verbal authority so to do, although the contract will not be binding on the owners, for want of written authority from them to sign their names to it, yet, if the purchaser is -willing to abide by it, the broker will be entitled to his commissions.</p> <p>2. The owners of a tract of land on the Illinois and Michigan canal, being inquired of by a real estate agent as to the price of the land, replied, fixing the price and saying that they would be glad if the agent could sell it to his (the agent’s) customer; afterwards, in a conversation with the agent, it was agreed that,-if the land, which was frequent])' mentioned as 55 acres, could be sold for §400 per acre, the agent should have §1000 commissions; the agent then sold the land and gave a written contract, in which it was described as 55 acres south of the canal; the owners were willing to convey the land to the purchaser as it was conveyed to them, being 55 acres south of the centre of the canal, but the purchaser would not take it by that description and the trade fell through; the land, iu the conversations between the owners and the agent, had been spoken of only as their land down on the canal: Held, that the only authority the agent had was, to sell the land by the description byr which the owners had purchased it, and that he was not entitled to recover commissions on the sale, as made.</p>