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Law Cases
Contract Law Cases
Mistake of Common Law Cases

William Sindall v Cambridgeshire CC [1994] 1 WLR 1016, 1034, 1035, 1042

Country:
United Kingdom
By Oxbridge Law Team
Hoffmann LJ
Evans LJ
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  • Plaintiff bought land from Defendant “subject to all easements… rights and privileges (whether of a public or private nature) now affecting the property but without any obligation on the part of the vendor to define the same.”

  • Defendant represented that, so far as it knew, there were no encumbrances etc. It later transpired that there was a sewer on the land which decreased the value and Plaintiff sought to rescind the contract on the grounds of common mistake.

  • CA denied the claim, saying that the contract set out a duty of disclosure to one’s best knowledge on Defendant but said that the risk lay with Plaintiff. 

  • The sewer did not seriously interfere with the use of the land, so that it would not be equitable for the contract to be rescinded, for mutual mistake. 

Hoffmann LJ

  • He supports Steyn’s point that the rules on mistake are only invoked if the contract does not state with whom the risk shall lie. Here, the contract does. 

Evans LJ

  • There are rules on “fundamental mistake” in equity (see Solle v Butcher):

The difference may be that the common law rule is limited to mistakes with regard to the subject matter of the contract, whilst equity can have regard to a wider and perhaps unlimited category of “fundamental” mistake.

  • However here the sewer was of little importance. 

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