PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) — The Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) yesterday dismissed an application for special leave to appeal a matter involving the sale of land in Barbados.

The CCJ said that its ruling in the Systems Sales Ltd versus Brown-Oxley highlights the importance of identifying the subject matter of land agreed to be sold.

It said that the parties to this matter entered into a contract to buy and sell a parcel of land identified on “a proposed sub-division plan” but did not attach any plan.

The CCJ said the resulting issue was that the purchaser, an experienced land developer, sought the CCJ’s appellate jurisdiction to order the vendor, an elderly couple, to honour their obligations under the contract relying on one plan while the vendors insisted they agreed to another.

The Barbados High Court trial judge held the vendors’ plan to be the contractual plan and refused to order specific performance of the purchaser’s plan on the basis that it contained a material modification to the contractual plan.

The Barbados Court of Appeal agreed with the trial judge’s conclusion. The Court of Appeal also found that the purchaser was not entitled to damages because it had failed to plead and prove any specific losses.

In its ruling, the CCJ held the view that the purchaser, having been in the land development business for 35 years, had only itself to blame for not clearly identifying the land by a plan.

The Trinidad-based court indicated that the purchaser could also be regarded as causing its own losses by rejecting the vendor’s plan and insisting on its own plan.

The three-panel CCJ panel, presided over by Justice Wit along with Justices Hayton and Anderson dismissed the purchaser’s application for special leave to appeal the decision of the Court of Appeal because it found no reason to interfere with that decision. It also ordered the purchaser to pay costs of the application to the vendor-respondents.

Attorneys Steve Gollop and Hal Gollop appeared for the applicant while Alair P Shepherd, QC and Wendy Maraj appeared for the respondents.