body: [Richard](https://www.uclan.ac.uk/staff_profiles/richard-taylor.php) and [Damian](https://www.slaughterandmay.com/who-we-are/partners/damian-taylor/) Taylor. [*Contract Law Directions* (2019 7 ed)](https://global.oup.com/academic/product/contract-law-directions-9780198836599?&lang=en&). p 337.
  
  
  
  > 
  > 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 *Fry on Specific Performance*) 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.
  > 
  > 
  > ### [Example] Mutuality from the outset
  > 
  > 
  > 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 **D [1.]** since **[2.] D would not be
  >  able to get specific performance of C’s obligation to renovate (it being a personal obligation)**.
  >  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.
  > 
  > 
  > 
  
  
  1. This is a typo right? This ought be C.
  2. I don't understand the emboldened phrase. Unquestionably this is a contract?
  
  
  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. 
  
  
  This example is readying the reader for this case in the bottom para. ibid. 
  
  
  
  > 
  > This view was confirmed by the Court of Appeal in *Price v Strange* [[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.
  > 
  > 
  > 
  
  
  
title: If D leases a house to C for C's promise to renovate it personally, why can't D get specific performance of C's obligation?