Judge: buyer does not have to comply with purchase of speculative land

A buyer of speculative agricultural land who feels misled and pressured by the seller is not obligated to honor the purchase. This was ruled by the preliminary relief judge of the North Holland District Court in summary proceedings. The judge emphasized the importance of notarial intervention in speculative land transactions.

The buyer purchased speculative agricultural land for over €500,000 but wishes to withdraw from the purchase. The seller has filed summary proceedings to enforce the purchase. According to the preliminary relief judge , the buyer correctly argued that statements "initiate false confidence in the soundness of the proposition" and that there are "misleading suggestions of soundness." The judge finds the seller's written information substandard and clearly intended more as a recommendation than as information. The judge also questions the manner in which the transactions in question were concluded.

Legal validity
According to the judge, the seller is justified in requiring the buyer to provide evidence of the deception and the pressure they experienced. The buyer has not yet sufficiently met this requirement. Nevertheless, the legal validity of the purchase may be questioned. According to the judge, this is more than sufficient to dismiss the claim in a transaction such as this, which is widely considered undesirable.

Shifting views
The court has the impression that views on the duty of care of speculative land providers are shifting. Partly for this reason, the court believes there is reason to dismiss the claim, allowing for a debate on this duty of care in substantive proceedings. According to the court, this case involves a commercially and systematically marketed speculative investment that, in essence, amounts to little more than a (very expensive) lottery ticket.

Notary intervention
The judge further notes that the seller should adopt a practice in which the purchase agreement is only binding once it has been recorded with the active intervention of a notary. This aligns with a recent proposal from the Royal Dutch Association of Civil-Law Notaries (KNB). The KNB proposes introducing a so-called "three-stage rocket" to protect consumers from speculative land trading. The proposal includes making a notarized purchase agreement mandatory, thereby proactively and promptly combating consumer deception.