medium · National Real Estate Exam transfer-title
A landowner orally agrees to sell a parcel to a buyer for $200,000. The buyer pays the full price in cash, takes exclusive possession, and over the next year builds a $60,000 addition with the seller's knowledge. No written contract is ever signed. The seller then refuses to deliver a deed and asserts the Statute of Frauds. The buyer sues for specific performance.
What is the most likely result and the controlling rationale?
- The buyer obtains specific performance, because the combination of payment, possession, and valuable improvements constitutes part performance unequivocally referable to the oral contract, removing it from the Statute of Frauds
- The seller prevails, because the Statute of Frauds bars enforcement of any land-sale contract not evidenced by a signed writing, without exception for performance already rendered
- The buyer is limited to restitution of the $200,000 plus the improvement cost, because equity will compensate but will never compel conveyance of land on an oral promise
- The buyer obtains specific performance solely because full payment was made, since payment of the entire purchase price is by itself always sufficient to satisfy the Statute of Frauds
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