方燕卿 v 方坤培 ([2016] HKEC 740, CFI) concerned an oral agreement by a brother to sell a flat to his sister. The sister drafted a memorandum of the terms of the agreement and the brother signed it. The brother later refused to complete and the sister sought specific performance. One aspect of the brother’s defence was that, following the Court of Final Appeal decision in Kwan Siu Man v Yaacov Ozer, there could be no contract where there was no express agreement as to the completion date. To J. rejected this interpretation of Kwan Siu Man. It is legally possible to enter into an open contract but the courts should not be too ready to find that this has occurred in the context of Hong Kong’s volatile property market. ‘In my opinion, the test is one of intention, i.e. have the parties reached a binding contract for the sale and purchase of that property at that price. If they have, then the other terms can be implied.’ ([79]). Here there was ample evidence that the parties had the necessary intention to be contractually bound.
Although no completion date was specified, the parties had agreed that completion would not take place until after their mother had died (the brother was joint tenant of the flat with the mother). It was to be implied that completion would take place at a reasonable time after the mother’s death. If completion does not take place within that time, the innocent party could issue a notice fixing a new completion date and making time of the essence ([80] referring to Behzadi v Shaftesbury Hotels Ltd and Lau Suk Ching Peggy v Ma Hing Lam). This was not void for uncertainty since it was certain that the mother would die even though the date of death could not be known ([83]).
The memorandum not only recorded the terms of the oral agreement but also the fact that the sister had paid the agreed deposit under the agreement. This did not mean that it was invalid as a memorandum. This was not a case where additional terms had been included in the memorandum casting doubt on whether it was truly intended to record the existence of an alleged oral agreement ([95]).
The oral agreement had been formed and the memorandum recorded it. The memorandum could even be considered as a written agreement. Specific performance was ordered.
Michael Lower
