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

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sewer did not seriously interfere with the use of the land, so that it would not be equitable for the contract to be rescinded, for mutual mistake.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

RELATED CASES

• Solle v Butcher