Condition Precedent in UK Law

In my opinion the clause may very appropriately and should be regarded as such an intermediate term: to do so would recognise that while in many, possibly most, instances, breach of it can adequately be sanctioned by damages, cases may exist in which, in fairness to the buyer, it would be proper to treat the cancellation as not having effect. On the other hand, always so to treat it may often be unfair to the seller, and unnecessarily rigid.

Once one approaches the analysis on the basis that, under Section 2(a)(iii), one is only looking at the payment obligation, rather than the debt obligation, the whole machinery makes sense. Thus, the wording of Section 2(a)(iii) makes it clear that the payment obligation is subject to the condition precedent that no Event of Default or Potential Event of Default has occurred "… and is continuing".

By parity of reasoning with my conclusions set out above on Issues 2 and 5(iii), it seems to me that Clauses 7 and 8 of the FFABA 2007 Terms and Section 2(a)(i) and (iii) are “one time” provisions for the calculation and assessment at the end of the Contract Month of whether a sum is owed. There is nothing in the wording of the provisions of the contract to suggest that if the condition precedent is fulfilled at some later date, some obligation to pay then springs up.

The fact that a particular construction leads to a very unreasonable result must be a relevant consideration. The more unreasonable the result the more unlikely it is that the parties can have intended it, and if they do intend it the more necessary it is that they shall make that intention abundantly clear.

The Wednesbury principles, as they are usually referred to, are applicable to determining the lawfulness of the exercise of the statutory discretion of a constable under section 2(4) of the Criminal Law Act 1967, not only in proceedings for judicial review but also for the purpose of founding a cause of action at common law for damages for that species of trespass to the person known as false imprisonment, for which the action in the instant case is brought.

Once a decision has been reached by the housing authority which gives rise to the temporary, the limited or the full housing duty, rights and obligations are immediately created in the field of private law. But it is inherent in the scheme of the Act that an appropriate public law decision of the housing authority is a condition precedent to the establishment of the private law duty.

I agree with Mr. Pollock that is important to keep promissory and contingent conditions separate but in my opinion there is a common factor. If the provision in an agreement is of fundamental importance then the result either of a failure to perform it (if it is promissory) or of the event not happening or the act not being done (if it is a contingent condition or a condition precedent or a condition subsequent) may be that the contract either never comes into being or terminates.