3. The learned trial judge held that the property in the new vehicle was not transferred to the respondent on the making of the bargain between the appellant and the respondent because that was not the intention of the parties: it would have been inconsistent with the proposed hire-purchase from a finance company. The parties contemplated that upon receiving 1,250 pounds the appellant would transfer its ownership of the vehicle to whoever paid the money, a finance company or the respondent. In that view of the transaction his Honour was, in my opinion, right. He went on, however, to say that the property in the new vehicle passed to the respondent when the cheque was tendered - that the agreement to sell then ripened into an actual sale. I have difficulty in taking this step with His Honour. The property did not pass by virtue of the contract as it would have in an ordinary agreement for sale. The agreement was that it would pass upon payment. In such circumstances tender is equivalent to payment: a seller cannot, by refusing to accept the proferred payment, prevent the property passing. This has been laid down in decisions in the United States following Dame v. Hanson (1912) 212 Mass 124 (98 NE 589) and it is consistent with our law of sale. But in this case the position is not so simple, because before the tender was made the appellant had renounced the transaction and refused to go on with it. The respondent when informed of the appellant's attitude could have rescinded the contract and brought an action for damages at once. Alternatively, it could do as it did, that is treat the agreement as still afoot and tender performance on its part, giving the appellant "the opportunity of withdrawing from its false position"; but in that case, when protests proved unavailing, "its only remedy in the end is also a claim for damages", the contract not being specifically enforceable: Heyman v. Darwins Ltd. (1942) AC 356, at pp 361, 371 . When it refused the tender the appellant showed that it was adhering to its renunciation. In Martindale v. Smith (1841) 1 QB 389 (113 ER 1181) to which his Honour referred the property had already passed by bargain and sale, the seller having merely a possessory lien. And in Mirabita v. Imperial Ottoman Bank (1878) 3 Ex D 164 , the other case to which he referred, the seller's dealing with the bill of lading was taken to evidence an intention only to secure the contract price. The distinction between that kind of case and one in which the seller manifests an intention to renounce the contract is clear in principle, although the application of the distinction in particular cases is often difficult: see Halsbury's Laws of England, 3rd ed., vol. 34, pp. 182, 183. Here the appellant had, I consider, withdrawn the vehicle from the contract before the tender was made. It had already gone back upon its promise. The respondent had, no doubt, a right of action for damages for breach of the agreement but it could no longer insist on turning the agreement into a sale by tendering payment. Its rights lay in contract, not in ownership: cf. Wait v. Baker [1848] EngR 240; (1848) 2 Ex 1 (154 ER 380) ; The Parchim (1918) AC 157, at p 170 . And the contract was not one of which equity would decree specific performance. Although I appreciate that a different view can be taken, those are my reasons for thinking that the learned trial judge was wrong in deciding the case on the basis that the respondent had become the owner. A different theory of the effect of a conditional sale is accepted in some jurisdictions in the United States but the American decisions, although instructive, are conflicting: see 47 American Jurisprudence, Sales ss. 828, 868-871, Williston on Sales Rev. ed. (1948) vol. 2 para. 331 p. 288 and the judgments and annotations in Nevada Motor Co. v. Bream (1928) 61 AmLR 776 ; Walker v. Houston (1932) 87 AmLR 937 and Bisi v. American Automobile Insurance Co. (1951) 23 AmLR 2d 787 . (at p490)