The contract that binds buyer and seller to a land transaction — its formal requirements, standard terms, and the consequences that flow from exchange.
Once contracts are exchanged, neither party can walk away, so everything turns on what the contract says and how it came into being. This chapter begins with the two stages of a land transaction and what exchange achieves, then sets out the statutory formalities a land contract must satisfy and the transactions — such as auctions and short leases — that escape them. It moves on to the Standard Conditions of Sale and the Standard Commercial Property Conditions, where each set is used and how special conditions, standard conditions and the general law rank against one another, before examining how the contract itself is structured and drafted. The final sections deal with the deposit and the Law Society's exchange formulae, what happens when completion is late — including the notice to complete and the fate of the deposit — and the equitable interest the buyer acquires the moment contracts are exchanged.
