Can a contract for the sale of undivided land be enforceable?

The trial judge cited a passage from Wightman v. Mattu (B.C.S.C., unreported, dated April 6, 1994) concerning the legal difficulties often posed by contracts for the sale of unsubdivided land. He did not agree, however, that the LPAs in this case were “too vague to be specifically enforced.” Rather, he said, the LPAs were “quite explicit as to the conditions precedent and as to the consequences of the conditions precedent not being met”. In his analysis: I do not find that the LPAs, standing on their own, were insufficiently precise to be enforceable. There was certainty as to the object of the contracts, through the depiction of the envisaged lots on the preliminary lot layouts. The lots had not yet been created, but this was addressed by making the subdivision depicted in the lot layout a condition precedent. The LPAs adequately addressed the risk of loss of the condition precedents not being fulfilled, by giving the parties a right of cancellation after a fixed period of time. [At para. 31; emphasis added.]