West Boundary Real Estate Co. v. Bayless

Citations

• 80 Md. 495
• 31 A. 442
• 1895 Md. LEXIS 20

Syllabus

<p>Specific Performance — Contract io Erect House of Given Cost — Compensation in Lieu of Specific Performance — When Deed not Controlled by Antecedent Contract of Sale.</p> <p>When a bill is filed for specific performance, it is only under special circumstances that pecuniary compensation will be decreed in lieu of the relief asked for.</p> <p>When a deed is executed and accepted in pursuance of a contract to sell land, the presumption is that it is a performance of the entire contract, and that the original agreement becomes null.</p> <p>The general rule is that parol evidence of antecedent negbtiations is not admissible to affect the terms of a deed, except where it is impeached for fraud, accident or mistake, or where the deed is shown to have been only a part execution of the contract.</p> <p>A contract for the sale of land provided that the vendee should erect, within one year, a dwelling house costing not less than $4,000, and made provision for other restrictions. The deed, as executed, did not contain this stipulation, but provided that the grantee should not, within ten years from the date of the deed, erect on said lot any dwelling house costing less than $3,000; and the deed differed in other particulars from the contract of sale. Four months before the expiration of the year referred to in the original agreement, the grantee conveyed the property by an absolute deed to S. Upon a bill for specific performance of the contract and other relief, Held, that, assuming the existence of a completed contract, yet, since the deed was inconsistent in important particulars with the contract, it took the place of all antecedent negotiations, and that the plaintiff was not entitled to demand specific performance of the original contract.</p>