Chartbrook Ltd v Persimmon Homes Ltd and another
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judge | LORD HOPE OF CRAIGHEAD,LORD HOFFMANN,LORD RODGER OF EARLSFERRY,LORD WALKER OF GESTINGTHORPE,BARONESS HALE OF RICHMOND |
| Judgment Date | 01 July 2009 |
| Neutral Citation | [2009] UKHL 38 |
| Date | 01 July 2009 |
| Court | House of Lords |
and others
and another
Appellate Committee
Lord Hope of Craighead
Lord Hoffmann
Lord Rodger of Earlsferry
Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe
Baroness Hale of Richmond
HOUSE OF LORDS
Appellants:
Christopher Nugee QC
Julian Greenhill
(Instructed by Mayer Brown International)
Respondent:
Robert Miles QC
Timothy Morshead
(Instructed by Carter-Ruck)
My Lords,
I have had the privilege of reading in draft the opinion of my noble and learned friend, Lord Hoffmann. Like my noble and learned friend, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe, whose opinion I have also had the privilege of reading, I agree with all his reasoning and I share Lord Walker's admiration for the way it has been expressed. For the reasons they give I would allow the appeal.
I agree that Persimmon's argument that the House should take account of the pre-contractual negotiations raises an important issue. Every so often the rule that prior negotiations are inadmissible comes under scrutiny. That is as it should be. One of the strengths of the common law is that it can take a fresh look at itself so that it can keep pace with changing circumstances. But for the reasons that have been set out by Lord Hoffmann I think that the arguments for retaining the rule have lost none of their force since Prenn v Simmonds [1971] 1 WLR 1381 demonstrated, as Lord Wilberforce put it at p 1384, the disadvantages and danger of departing from established doctrine.
In the Court of Appeal Lawrence Collins LJ said that the policy reasons for the rule have not been fully articulated: [2008] EWCA Civ 183, para 106. I am not sure, with respect, that everyone would agree with him. Lord Gifford did his best to explain what they are in his dissenting opinion in Inglis v Buttery (1877) 5 R 58, 69-70. When that case came before this House Lord Blackburn said that they set out exactly what he himself thought: (1878) 3 App Cas 552, 577. As Lord Gifford explained, the very purpose of a formal contract is to put an end to the disputes which would inevitably arise if the matter were left upon what the parties said or wrote to each other during the period of their negotiations. It is the formal contract that records their bargain, however different it may be from what they may have stipulated for previously
Lord Blackburn clearly saw no conflict between the exclusionary rule and Lord Justice Clerk Moncreiff's proposition that the Court was entitled to be put in the position that the parties stood before they signed: (1877) 5 R 58, 64. In River Wear Commissioners v Adamson (1877) 2 App Cas 743, 763 he had already acknowledged that the court should look beyond the language of the contract and see what the circumstances were with reference to which the words were used. As he put it, the meaning of words varies according to the circumstances with respect to which they are used. It was the reasons that Lord Gifford articulated in Inglis v Buttery (1877) 5 R 58, 69-70, that persuaded him that to admit evidence of prior negotiations would be a step too far. I think that what appealed to Lord Blackburn still holds true today. If more is needed, Lord Hoffmann's analysis provides it. As he has indicated, it would only be if your Lordships were confident that the rule was impeding the proper development of the law or contrary to public policy that it would be right for it to be departed from. That this is so has not, as I see it, been demonstrated.
My Lords,
On 16 October 2001 Chartbrook Ltd ("Chartbrook") entered into an agreement with Persimmon Homes Ltd ("Persimmon"), a well-known house-builder, for the development of a site in Wandsworth which Chartbrook had recently acquired. The structure of the agreement was that Persimmon would obtain planning permission and then, pursuant to a licence from Chartbrook, enter into possession, construct a mixed residential and commercial development (commercial premises below, flats above, parking in the basement) and sell the properties on long leases. Chartbrook would grant the leases at the direction of Persimmon, which would receive the proceeds for its own account and pay Chartbrook an agreed price for the land. Planning permission was duly granted and the development was built, but there is a dispute over the price which became payable.
Schedule 6 contained the relevant provisions. The price was defined as the aggregate of the Total Land Value and the Balancing Payment. The Total Land Value was made up of three parts: Total Residential Land Value, Total Commercial Land Value and Total Residential Cark Parking Land Value. Total Residential Land Value was to be £76.34 per square foot multiplied by the area for which planning permission for flats was granted. Total Commercial Land Value was £38.80 per square foot multiplied by the area for which planning permission for shops and other commercial uses was granted. And Total Residential Cark Parking Land Value was £3,024 multiplied by the number of spaces for which planning permission was granted. The Schedule set out the dates upon which the Total Land Value was to be paid. In principle, payment would fall due as each flat, shop or parking space was sold. But there was also a backstop provision for payment of specified percentages of the Total Land Value (so far as not already paid) by dates commencing about two and a half years after the grant of planning permission and ending about two years later, by which time the whole sum was due, whether the properties had been sold or not.
The provisions about Total Land Value are all quite straightforward and only require the insertion of the appropriate figures from the planning permission (which are not in dispute) into the formulae provided. The other element in the price is the Balancing Payment. For reasons concerned with its drafting history which need not be explored, the Schedule defines the Balancing Payment as the Additional Residential Payment ("ARP") and then goes on to define the latter expression. So when I refer to the ARP, that means the Balancing Payment.
The definition of the ARP, over which the whole dispute turns, is outwardly uncomplicated:
"23.4% of the price achieved for each Residential Unit in excess of the Minimum Guaranteed Residential Unit Value less the Costs and Incentives."
This contains three more defined concepts. Residential Unit means a flat. The Minimum Guaranteed Residential Unit Value ("MGRUV") means the Total Residential Land Value divided by the number of flats. And Costs and Incentives ("C & I") mean the additional expense which Persimmon might have to incur to induce someone to buy a flat; for example, by providing fittings better than specification or paying legal expenses. Such payments are economically equivalent to a reduction in the price achieved.
Chartbrook says that the meaning of the definition is perfectly simple. You take the price achieved, deduct the MGRUV and the C & I and calculate 23.4% of the result. That gives you a figure for an individual flat which, together the figures for similar calculations on all the other flats, makes up the ARP or Balancing Payment. That and the Total Land Value is the price. On the agreed figures, that produces a Total Land Value of £4,683,565 and an ARP of £4,484,862, making £9,168,427 in all. The judge (Briggs J) [2007] EWHC 409 (Ch) and a majority of the Court of Appeal (Tuckey and Rimer LJJ) [2008] EWCA Civ 183 agreed.
This construction is certainly in accordance with conventional syntax, at any rate, up to the point at which one decides when C & I should be deducted. As Briggs J said (at para 53) —
"ARP means 23.4% of something. To the question '23.4% of what?' the clear answer is the excess of the price achieved for each Residential Unit over the MGRUV, less the Costs and Incentives."
I do not think that the syntax helps one to decide whether C & I should be deducted before or after calculating the 23.4%, that is to say, whether there is a notional pause for breath after "MGRUV", represented in the passage I have quoted from the judgment by a comma which does not appear in the contract. That is a grammatical ambiguity which must be resolved by considering the business purpose of providing for a deduction of C & I. But the judge was clearly right about the effect of the syntax employed in the first part of the definition.
Persimmon, on the other hand, says that the purpose of dividing the price into Total Land Value and ARP was to give Chartbrook a minimum price for its land, calculated on current market assumptions, and to allow for the possibility of an increase if the market rose and the flats sold for more than expected. It is agreed that, at the time of the agreement, the parties expected that a 700 square foot flat would sell for about £200,000 or so, maybe slightly more. The MGRUV at £76.34 a square foot for such a flat was £53, 438 or 26.7% of a price of £200,000. If the realised price was £228,000, it would represent 23.4%. The purpose of the ARP was to provide that if the flats sold for more than £228,000, Chartbrook would be entitled to the amount by which 23.4% of the higher price exceeded the £53,438 MGRUV. What the definition therefore means is that you deduct C & I from the realised price to arrive at the net price received by Persimmon, then calculate 23.4% of that price, and the ARP is the excess of that figure over MGRUV. On this calculation, ARP is £897,051, compared with Chartbrook's claim for £4,484,862. In the Court of Appeal Lawrence Collins LJ, dissenting, held that Persimmon's construction was correct.
There is no dispute that the principles on which a contract (or any other instrument or...
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Subject Index
.... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148Chapman vCalifornia 386 US18 (1967) . . . . . 116Chartbrook Ltd v Persimmon Homes Ltd [2009]UKHL 38,[2009] 1 AC1101. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234Chesterfield & Midland Silkstone Colliery Co.Ltd vHawkins (1865) 3H & C677 . . . . . . . . 146Cimino v Rayma......
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The legal and commercial frameworks
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Contract formation
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