Bonk v. Boyajian

FOX, J.

Defendants appeal from a decree of specific performance.

Defendants, husband and wife, own as joint tenants, certain real property in the city of Pomona. On February 1, 1950, plaintiffs leased this property for a two-year period at a rental of $90 per month. Defendant husband signed the lease but his wife neither signed the document nor did she give him written authority to sign for her. The lease contained the following option to purchase the property:

“It is further agreed that lessee shall have the option to 2 s purchase this property at any time within the first year of this lease at the purchase, price of $7000.00, down payment or more to be $3000.00/,

Monthly payments on the balance due to he agreed upon at the time of purchase,

within the first 2 s year of this lease the rent paid up to the time of purchase shall be applied on the purchase price and is not to be deducted from the down payment.’’ (Emphasis added.)

Prior to February, 1952, plaintiffs caused to be delivered to Mrs. Boyajian a notice of exercise of option, which read, in part, as follows:

“You are further notified that the undersigned have paid to you, by way of rent under the terms of the above described Store Lease, $2,160.00 and that under the terms of the above described option-the said sum of $2,160.00 shall apply, in addition to the said sum of $3,000.00, upon the total purchase price set forth in the option of $7,000.00 leaving a balance due you for the purchase price of the property $1,840.00, which, under the terms of the option, the undersigned offers to pay to you as follows: a Promissory Note to be executed by the undersigned to you for $1,840.00 bearing interest at the rate of 6% per annum and to be paid in installments of $100.00 per month, including interest and principal, the first payment commencing February 1, 1952,

Plaintiffs thereupon opened an escrow, deposited $3,000 therein and claimed credit for $2,160, which represented the

[155]

rentals they had paid. Plaintiffs also executed and placed in the escrow their promissory note for the balance of $1,840, payable at the rate of $100 per month with interest at 6 per cent. The defendants refused to proceed with the deal, the husband claiming that the alterations in the lease were different from those authorized by him, and the wife relying on the fact that she had neither signed the document nor given her husband written authority to represent her. No attempt was made to fix the amount of monthly payments on the balance. At the time of the trial, however, the installments of $100 per month which plaintiffs had deposited with the clerk of the court had reached the sum of $1,840, the balance under the lease-option agreement. The court thereupon ordered the defendants to convey the property to the plaintiffs by “a good and sufficient” deed upon the payment to the defendants by the clerk of said $1,840 and the payment by plaintiffs of the further sum of $3,000.