Chapter 10: Caveat Emptor

A promising outlook confronted Judge Embert Wimple. The Headingley test match was coming up and the weather reporter, deprived of the chance of a doomcast, had been forced to admit that the rain that had been threatening to wash out the game was about to stop. It seemed likely that the full five days would be available for play. To make things even better, Esmeralda had chalked up another impressive score in the painting department by selling a townscape for two hundred pounds. Her work on perspective was paying major dividends. The domestic scene was improving apace and the judge was teetering on the edge of a decision to end his long legal career. After all, with affairs on the home front so pleasant, there would be no need to scurry off to court to avoid them. It was a window of opportunity. Perhaps time to concentrate on cosmology. Could the answer to the mystery of the universe be within the grasp of the octogenarian dispenser of law?

Today’s case – Whitcombe versus Booth – seemed to be another piffling wrangle, but one never knew. And anyway, the combatants were to be represented by two rising young warriors, Arabella Bray appearing for the prosecution and Cedric Thistle for the defence. This pleased Judge Wimple, offering as it did a change from the confrontations between the veterans he had seen so often.

Taking his place, the judge was gratified to note that the litigants on both sides were well-dressed, which in his view showed due deference to the occasion. Mr and Mrs Whitcombe looked particularly smart. Embert Wimple opened his hands, addressing Bray. “Very well, Ms Bray. Please begin.”

Prosecuting counsel was momentarily nonplussed by the judge’s accuracy, but proved equal to the occasion. “Thank you, Your Honour. The case here is perfectly clear. My clients, Mr and Mrs Whitcombe, planned to move home. On the seventeenth of January they were returning from a shopping trip when they passed a bungalow belonging to the defendant. In the garden was sign with the legend ‘House for Sale. Apply Within’. The area in question is a much sought-after one, about six miles from the centre of this city. My clients stopped and decided to make enquiries. They found the defendant at home, asked to view the property and did so. They at once agreed to buy the bungalow, informing Mr Booth that they had a prospective purchaser for their own house. As a result of their visit to the property, they contacted their would-be buyer and matters proceeded as usual in such circumstances.

Seeing that the judge was beginning to nod off, Arabella Bray hastened to her critical point. “Having made their decision, my clients relaxed and allowed events to take their course. They thought nothing of the fact that the defendant had told them of his intention to take a long vacation in the Caribbean. He had left his solicitor with power of attorney to conduct his affairs. On conclusion of the formalities, my clients employed a removal company to transport their effects to their new residence.”

“No doubt eager to get on with the next phase of life,” said the judge. His irrelevant interjection had no purpose other than to remind everyone, especially himself, that he was still attentive.

“Indeed so, Your Honour. However, their euphoria evaporated when they arrived at their destination. Before setting out, they had made a telephone call to Mr Booth’s home to clarify that all was well, but did not get an answer. They therefore contacted his solicitor, who said that Mr Booth was still overseas but that he – the solicitor – would meet the Whitcombes at the property and hand over the keys. When they arrived, my clients were surprised to find that the bungalow was still fully furnished. The solicitor who had been waiting at the other end of the street –”

“Why there?” the judge broke in.

“I am coming to that, Your Honour. The solicitor saw the Whitcombes’ removal van and drove along to join them. Initially, he was as puzzled as they were but to cut a long story short it emerged that he had been waiting outside a different property because that was the one he had conveyed from Mr Booth to my clients. At his request the Whitcombes accompanied him to this second property, which he told them they had bought.”

Bray paused for a drink of water before proceeding: “No doubt Your Honour will appreciate that my clients were baffled and distressed. They had vacated their house and had a pantechnicon full of furniture and other effects. Also, their purchasers had moved into the Whitcombes’ former house the moment after my clients had moved out. Mr Booth’s solicitor suggested that the only sensible solution would be for Mr and Mrs Whitcombe to move into the second bungalow, pending clarification.”

“I am amazed,” said the judge. “You mean that Mr and Mrs Whitcombe were advised by a lawyer to move, willy-nilly, into what was probably the nearest empty property?”

“It was not entirely unconsidered, Your Honour. In addition to the bungalow in which he was living, the defendant owned the empty one, which he had inherited. The solicitor also had with him the keys to that property.”

Judge Wimple shook his head. “I usually think of myself as being abreast of social advances,” he said, “but I am beginning to believe that that I may have been bypassed by changing standards. Are you saying that your clients took possession of a property they had not bought because the one they thought they had bought was not the one defendant claimed to have sold?”

“Not quite, Your Honour. It was not as simple as that.”

The judge sighed. “I do not normally take any medication,” said, “but I feel the need coming on. How complicated was it?”

“Perhaps the position could best be described as force majeure, Your Honour. Like everyone else, my clients had to be somewhere. They merely acquiesced to the suggestion that by moving into the empty property, they would at least get refuge for the night. In fact it turned out to be for many nights. Unfortunately for them, the property they moved into was a far cry from the one they imagined they had bought. It was exactly the same in size and layout, but there the resemblance ended. The bungalow in which they found themselves was deficient in many respects. It had previously been owned by the defendant’s parents and had not been lived in for some time. It was affected by penetrating damp, rising damp, wet rot, dry rot and heavy mould growth. The roof leaked and neither the front door not the back one could be closed, from inside or outside, without the application of shoulders, knees or both.”

The judge’s eyes rolled upwards. “I don’t like to use the word ‘incredible’, but I am close to doing so,” he said. “Does this complete your presentation?”

“Yes, Your Honour. My clients are simple people and demand only what is right. They wish to take over the property they assumed they had bought, and to receive some compensation for their inconvenience.”

“Thank you, Ms Drain,” said the judge. He turned a dark stare upon Cedric Thistle. “Now, do you have an explanation for this, Mr Entwistle?”

“Yes, Your Honour,” Thistle replied, seeming less forceful than usual. “It is true that my client placed a sign in his garden, advertising a property for sale. It is also true that Mr and Mrs Whitcombe approached him in the manner described by the prosecution. However, the introductory comments are important. On entering Mr Booth’s bungalow, Mr Whitcombe said: “May we have a look around your house?” My client obliged, but at no time did he suggest that the property the Whitcombes inspected was the one he intended to sell. He was merely proud to show them his own dwelling.”