Sale and Implied Warranty of Soundness

Sale is a transaction that is central to the economic lifeblood of a
nation. Yet the Scots common law contract of sale, which
regulates transactions featuring corporeal immoveable and
incorporeal property, has been subjected to little analysis in the
past two centuries. The default rules underlying such contracts
have never been coherently systematised, and central issues are
plagued by significant gaps in knowledge.

Sale and the Implied Warranty of Soundness is the first book on
the common law of sale since Mungo Brown’s A Treatise on the
Law of Sale was published in 1821. The focus of the book is an
assertion made by Kenneth Reid in 1987 that the law in this area
developed in a unified manner, with the same set of default
principles applying regardless of the type of property involved. This
is an attractive idea, since it would improve our understanding of
the law in this area, but it is an untested one. The book examines
this idea through a study of the implied warranty of soundness.
Topics explored include the warranty’s origins, development and
substantive content; the contentious issue of its application to
transactions featuring corporeal immoveable property; and the
hitherto unexamined issue of its application to incorporeal
property.