Can a vendor terminate a contract if they abandon their efforts to obtain subdivision approval?

In Grewal v. Singh, 2003 BCSC 1836, 2003 CarswellBC 3022 (S.C.) a vendor who had sold a property subject to subdivision reconsidered her position, because the process for obtaining subdivision approval was more expensive than she had expected. Groberman J said that if subdivision had turned out to be impossible or not reasonably practical, the contract might have been terminated by the doctrine of frustration. However, he found that the subdivision application process had been proceeding smoothly and, by abandoning the process, the vendor breached the implied term of the agreement to make her best efforts to obtain subdivision.

A different result was reached in Britton v. Buhr 1994 CarswellBC 802. In that case, there was an agreement of purchase and sale that included certain “adjacent land” that the vendor did not yet own. The agreement was subject to the vendor acquiring title to that adjacent land, which was in turn dependent on that land being subdivided from a larger property. There were delays in obtaining approval of the subdivision and in meeting government requirements, so the sale could not be completed by the date set out in the agreement.