If D leases a house to C for C&#39;s promise to renovate it personally, why can&#39;t D get specific performance of C&#39;s obligation?
<p><a href="https://www.uclan.ac.uk/staff_profiles/richard-taylor.php" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Richard</a> and <a href="https://www.slaughterandmay.com/who-we-are/partners/damian-taylor/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Damian</a> Taylor. <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/contract-law-directions-9780198836599?&amp;lang=en&amp;" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><em>Contract Law Directions</em> (2019 7 ed)</a>.  p 337.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>The question has arisen whether mutuality needs to have been present from the outset—from
  the time of entering into the contract—or only by the time of enforcing it. The nineteenth-century
  formulation (in <em>Fry on Specific Performance</em>) expressed the doctrine as requiring that
  the remedy of specific performance should have been potentially available to either party at the
  time the contract is made.</p>
  
  <h3>[Example] Mutuality from the outset</h3>
  
  <p>D agrees to grant a lease of a house to C in return for C’s promise personally to renovate
  the house. D’s promise could not be specifically enforced against <strong>D [1.]</strong> since <strong>[2.] D would not be
  able to get specific performance of C’s obligation to renovate (it being a personal obligation)</strong>.
  Furthermore, following Fry, the objection of lack of mutuality would still persist even
  if C had already done the renovation because the mutuality had to exist at the time of
  formation of the contract.</p>
</blockquote>

<ol>
<li><p>This is a typo right? This ought be C.</p></li>
<li><p>I don't understand the emboldened phrase. Unquestionably this is a contract? </p></li>
</ol>

<p>D's promise (grant of a lease) is consideration for C's promise to renovate, and C's promise is consideration for D's promise. </p>

<p>This example is readying the reader for this case  in the bottom para. ibid. </p>

<blockquote>
  <p>This view was confirmed by the Court of Appeal in <em>Price v Strange</em> [[1977] 3 W.L.R. 943]. The trial judge held
  that specific performance of an agreement to grant an underlease of a flat could not be ordered
  against the defendant because specific performance could not have been ordered against the
  claimant who had contracted to repair and decorate the flat (following Fry’s approach). The
  Court of Appeal reversed this decision and granted specific performance of the underlease
  since the claimant had done the repairs and decoration until he had been prevented from doing
  so by the defendant, and he had promised to pay to the defendant the cost of completing the
  repairs he had not done. There was therefore no danger of the defendant being left high and
  dry after complying with the court’s order of specific performance.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I don't think there is a typo.</p>

<p>I think the main question is whether specific performance should be enforced against D, that is, whether D should be ordered to grant the lease to C.  The trial court said no, reasoning that if they did so, then they should <strong>also</strong> enforce specific performance against C, i.e. ordering C to perform the renovations himself - and they won't do that because that is a personal obligation.</p>

<p>(It seems to be a standard tenet of law that specific performance is generally not used when "performance consists of a personal service".  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_performance" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Wikipedia</a> confirms this, though without explanation.  I don't know exactly why this is the practice; maybe it would be a good separate question.  I might speculate that courts feel that to order a person to perform a particular service would be a little too much like involuntary servitude.)</p>

<p>However, the Court of Appeals said that there was no need to order C to perform the renovations, because C had already done some of them and agreed to pay for the rest.  Therefore the trial court's reasoning did not apply, and there was no problem with enforcing specific performance only against D, i.e. ordering D to grant the lease.</p>

contract-law england-and-wales