Amin offered to sell his car to Abu for RM60,000, and Abu

accepted the offer. Later Abu said he made a mistake, he

thought the price was at RM50,000. Advise the parties.

The legal issue here is whether the agreement between Amin

and Abu is void due to mistake.
Mistake affects free consent to an agreement , as stated in
section 14 and any agreement which does not have free
consent is not lawful, as stated in section 10. Under section
21, a mistake about facts and is committed by both parties to
the contract would cause the contract to be void.
CASE?????? FACTS? WHAT DID THE COURT SAY???
Raffles v. Wichelhouse
This contract referred to a ship named “The Peerless”.
Actually, there were two ships using the name “The Peerless”.
One party to the contract thought it referred to Ship A, while
the other party thought it referred to Ship B. The Court held
that the contract between them was void since it was a
mistake of facts committed by both parties to the contract.
A mistake which is done by one party only to the contract
does not cause the contract to be void. The contract will still
be valid, as stated in section 23.
CASE: Tamplin v James
FACTS?? The buyer of the property thought that the property
would include one particular area. However , in that auction
he4 was the only who made that mistake. The seller did not
make that mistake. The court held that the contract was
valid.

Where the mistake is about a document, mistake made by

one party to the written agreement could cause the
agreement to be void, as long as it could be proven that he
thought the document was materially different than what the
document is actually about.
CASE: Awang B Omar v Hj Omar
When he made the agreement, he thought he was signing as a
witness. Actually, he was signing as a guarantor. The Court
held that the agreement was void and that he could get out of
the agreement since signing as a witness is materially
different than signing as a guarantor.

In this problem between Amin and Abu, regarding the

agreement of selling the car to Abu for RM60,000, only Abu
made the mistake of thinking that the price was RM50,000.
The mistake here is only made by one party, therefore the
contract is still valid as stated in section 23. Only a mistake
that is committed by both parties to the contract would cause
the contract to be void.
If the contract between Amin and Abu was in a document,
Abu must prove that it was materially different. In this case,
he thought the price was RM50,000. The actual price was at
RM60,000. These two prices are not materially different.
Therefore, the contract is still valid.

Selling it to XYZ
Giving it to XYZ.