What remedies are available to a seller who is injured in an action for breach of contract?

In other words, the injured seller has a choice of remedies. It can prove the contract to purchase has been breached and seek damages occasioned by that breach. In the alternative, a decree of specific performance can be sought. In that case, the goal is to put the parties back in the position they would have been had the contract been timely performed. "Confusion [insofar as what may be awarded in addition to specific performance] has existed because of the informal use of the term 'damages' in connection with such an award, but it is settled that such compensation neither constitutes damages as contemplated in an action for breach of contract, nor implies legal damages." (Greenstone v. Claretian Theo. Seminary (1959) 173 Cal.App.2d 21, 29, 343 P.2d 161.)

"In California the compensation which may be awarded incident to a decree of specific performance is not for breach of contract and is not legal damages. The complainant affirms the contract and asks that it be performed. Since the time for performance has passed, the court relates that performance back to that date, by treating the parties as if the change in ownership had taken place at that time. Thus the buyer is entitled to the rents and profits from the time the contract should have been performed, and the seller is entitled to an offset for the interest on the purchase money [218 Cal.App.3d 299] which he would have received had the contract been performed. The process is more like an accounting between the parties than an assessment of damages. [Citations.]" (Hutton v. Gliksberg (1982) 128 Cal.App.3d 240, 248, 180 Cal.Rptr. 141.)