Question: After being shown several lots in the Wickenburg area, we decided to buy one of the lots. We signed the contract drafted by our real estate agent. A few days after escrow was opened, we contacted the homebuilder to set up a time to meet at the lot, but after some confusion, he said that we bought the wrong lot.
The mistake occurred because our real estate agent had used the legal description of another lot in drafting the contract. The seller refuses to cancel the contract, however, because the seller says that any mistake was not his mistake. According to the Arizona Real Estate Law, can the seller enforce the contract against us?
Answer: No. Our legal system is based not only on statutes and rules but on judicial decisions, including early English judicial decisions known as common law.
One early English decision was the 1864 Peerless case. In the Peerless case, the buyer agreed to buy cotton arriving on the ship Peerless leaving from Bombay, India. In fact, however, there were two ships named Peerless leaving from Bombay, India: one ship leaving in October and the other ship leaving in December.
The buyer meant the ship Peerless that was leaving in October, and the seller meant the ship Peerless that was leaving in December. The buyer refused to pay for the cotton, which arrived later than the buyer expected on the ship Peerless that left in December, and the seller sued the buyer.
