Estate agent the London Mews Co Ltd (LMC) has succeeded in its Appeal Court claim that it is entitled to payment of fees following the sale of a Mayfair property.
The case centred on the 2001 sale, under a sole agency agreement, of 17 Bryanston Mews, London W1, for £920,000.
The court dismissed a challenge by vendor Stephen Burney, of 54 Manor Road, Chigwell, Essex, to a December 2002 Ilford County Court ruling, in which the judge refused to set aside an earlier summary judgment against Burney for commission fees of £22,736 payable to LMC.
Burney instructed LMC as sole agent to sell the property, but claimed that, without his authority, LMC had forwarded the property details to another estate agent, Kay & Co, which subsequently prepared its own particulars of the property on its own paper without the consent of either Burney or LMC.
A potential purchaser was sent details by Kay & Co, but when he tried to arrange a viewing, he was told that the company had not been instructed to sell the property. The purchaser contacted Burney direct, and a sale was agreed.
In the county court, the judge found that LMC had been the effective cause of the sale and held that it was the work undertaken by LMC, including the preparation and advertising of the particulars of the property, that had enabled the sale to proceed.
In the Court of Appeal, Roger Bartlett, counsel for Burney, said that Kay & Co’s advertising had linked the purchaser to the potential sale of the property and it was Burney who had personally organised a viewing and negotiated and concluded the sale of the property.
He argued that, in those circumstances, the “chain of causation had been broken by the intervention of Kay & Co” and judges who had previously dealt with the case had been wrong to find otherwise.
Justin Kitson, counsel for LMC, said that it was that company’s particulars and marketing efforts that had directed the purchaser’s interest to the property.
He claimed that the purchaser’s private contact with Burney was possible only because LMC had produced particulars, marketed the property, and sent details to him via Kay & Co.
He said that the practical implications of the defendant’s argument could deny LMC its commission in circumstances in which it had followed usual practices in order to maximise the prospects of sale.
Backing the earlier ruling and dismissing Burney’s appeal, Waller LJ said: “In my view, the judge was right in the conclusion to which he came that, on the facts, LMC introduced the purchaser by the use of their particulars.”
Burney was ordered to pay LMC’s appeal costs, assessed at £3,450.
The London Mews Company Ltd v Burney Court of Appeal (Waller and Kay LJJ and Lindsay J) 7 May 2003.
References: PLS News 8/5/03
