Legal Speak Made Easy

“Fictional fulfilment”

You may come across this term in contractual disputes, where one of the parties deliberately prevents fulfilment of a suspensive condition in order to escape the sale. With property sales, it usually relates to the “bond clause”, where the whole sale is “suspended” until the buyer is granted a bond. The buyer gets cold feet and intentionally frustrates the granting of a bond. In appropriate circumstances, a court can then “deem” the condition to have been fulfilled through the old legal doctrine of “fictional fulfilment of a suspensive condition”.