Obligations of Parties to the Contract of Sale and Remedies for Breach

Abstract

This thesis is about obligations of parties to the contract of sale and remedies that a party can avail himself of in case of breach by the other party. The study aims at making the subject, as regulated by the Civil Transactions Act, 1984, well understood due to the fact that the contract of sale has great impact on our economic life, and also explaining how deficient this Act is in relation to the subject. Under the Civil Transactions Act, 1984, the seller is required to perform more duties than the buyer does and these are: transfer of ownership, delivery of the thing sold, warranty of safety and warranty of latent defects. The buyer, on the other hand, has to discharge two duties only, namely payment of the price and taking delivery of the thing sold. Rules governing remedies for breach of contract of sale were elaborately detailed under the previous legislation- the Sales Act, 1974. This is not, however, the case under the Civil Transactions Act, 1984. As is the case in other contractual disputes, damages are mostly claimed in actions for breach of contract of sale. Nevertheless, the Civil Transactions Act, 1984, is completely devoid not only of rules relating to recovery of damages for breach of contract of sale, but also of rules for recovery of damages for breach of contract generally. This constitutes a serious deficiency which requires amendment of the Act.