Wood v. Dickey

Citations

• 90 Va. 160
• 17 S.E. 818
• 1893 Va. LEXIS 26

Syllabus

<p>1. Options — Want of mutuality — Specific'performance.-—A court of equity in this State will not decree specific execution of a contract where there is no mutuality both of obligation and remedy, as both parties must, by the contract itself, have a right to compel specific execution. Graybill v. JBrugh, 89 Va., 895.</p> <p>2. Idem — Case at bar.- — Vendor sold to vendee by a title bond (containing no stipulation for a resale) a certain lot of land, agreeing to make vendee a deed thereto free from all incumbrances with general warranty when the last payment of the purchase money was made. When that payment became due vendee made it, and demanded such a deed as he was entitled to under said instrument, which vendor executed and delivered to him, but demanded and received from vendee a sealed obligation to build a house thereon within two years, and in the event of failing to build the house to sell back to vendor, at what he paid with interest, said lot except the ground whereon a warehouse then stood. The house was not built within the period specified, and vendor tendered the amount paid with interest to vendee and demanded conveyance. Vendee refused to accept the money and to make the conveyance. Thereupon vendor filed his bill for specific performance. Circuit court overruled the demurrer to the bill and decreed specific performance.</p> <p>Held :</p> <p>The title bond is a complete contract in itself, and can alone be looked to for the conditions of the sale; and the demurrer should have been sustained for want of mutuality in the contract for resale and the bill dismissed.</p>