In Leeman v Stocks ([1951] Ch 941) property was sold at auction. The auctioneer got the purchaser to sign a contract. He then reported to the seller on what had happened and the seller did not object. The contract was not signed by or on behalf of the seller. The wording of the printed contract ended with the words ‘As witness the hands of the parties’ and so seemed to envisage hand-written signatures. The seller later refused to proceed and the buyer sought specific performance.
The purchaser succeeded despite the lack of the seller’s signature. It was enough that the written contract was clearly regarded as the authorised and formal embodiment of the parties’ contractually binding intention and that the seller’s name was written in the contract. By requiring the purchaser to sign the contract, the auctioneer (as agent of the seller) was recognizing the name of the seller written in the contract as the seller’s signature.
While the contract seemed to require the parties’ hand-written signatures, this did not matter where there was evidence to show that neither party actually contemplated that there would be such a signature.
Michael Lower
