Time to be allowed for considering answers to requisitions on title

A seller must reply to requisitions within a reasonable time. The purchaser must be left with a reasonable time to consider the reply given. Where the contract specified that the purchaser had 7 days to reply to the seller’s answers that was a good guide as to the reasonable time to be allowed.

In Smart Max Enterprise Ltd v Speedy Way Ltd ([2011] HKEC 734, CA) a seller delayed several months before replying to requisitions raised by the buyer. The buyer waived the contractual time for the reply. The seller eventually replied two hours before the deadline for completion and the buyers complained that they had not been given sufficient time to consider the reply. The seller’s offered another day for completion but the buyers refused to complete within that deadline. The Court of Appeal held that the sellers had not given the buyers enough time to consider their reply (even though the reply did not raise a complex issue). The contract gave the buyers 7 days to respond to requisitions and so 7 days was the reasonable time to be allowed.