Buying and Selling: Ruling on Seller Cancelling Sale After Buyer’s Payment Delay and Withholding Deposit

Practical Laws of Islam as per the teachings of Imam Khamenei

Buying and Selling: Ruling on Seller Cancelling Sale After Buyer’s Payment Delay and Withholding Deposit

English:

Question #1564:

I bought property and paid a deposit, on the understanding that I pay the remaining amount in three months’ time when the property would be officially registered in my name. We noted the sale on a piece of paper. However, I could not come up with the money on the appointed date. A month later I approached the vendor with the remaining amount of money with a view to transferring the property in my name. He refused to do so claiming that he had cancelled the contract by default. It is worth mentioning that he has not returned the money I gave him. Furthermore, he rented the property during this time and received the rent. Has he the right to do so?

Answer #1564:

The mere declining to pay a part of the price at the specified time does not give the vendor the right to cancel the agreement. If the property was purchased in a proper and shar‘ī manner, yet it remained at the disposal of the vendor who took the liberty to rent it without his enjoying the right of annulment, the rent contract, he concluded, should be dependent on the consent of the buyer. It is obligatory on him to hand the property over to the buyer and pay the latter what he received in rent; that is if the buyer had already agreed to rent the property. If he does not agree with the rent contract, the buyer has the right to demand compensation for the period that the vendor had the property at his disposal.

-Imam Khamenei, Practical Laws of Islam, Importance and Conditions of Buying and Selling