Offer, acceptance, contract, agreement, parties, offerer, offeree, legal rights, obligations, conditional acceptance, counteroffer, express offer, Smith v. Hughes, Ardente v. Horan, terms and conditions, contract law, proposition, legal rules
A contract is considered as a legally binding agreement between two or more parties. The agreement creates legal rights and obligations that can be enforced in court. The courts have adopted an intellectual framework that analyzes transactions in terms of offer and acceptance to determine whether parties have reached an agreement. For an agreement to be formed, one party to the transaction must demonstrate that an offer was made, which was accepted by the other party. The offer and acceptance, put together, constitute an agreement.
[...] The acceptance must be done according to the guiding of the offerer. If not, the offeree must reply in a reasonable manner, whether he agrees or not. Acceptance communication does not imply that the offerer must come to know about the acceptance. Even if the letter of acceptance is lost, the offerer is bound by the acceptance because the acceptor has fulfilled all of his obligations. Note The offerer cannot impose a burden on the other party to communicate his refusal or rejection while making an offer. [...]
[...] Example A offers C the amount of 300Pound if C sells fruits for A. In this case, everything is not clear and if this matter were to be brought in court, without enough terms of the offer, it will be invalid. In fact, what type of fruit is sold? What quantity? After how long should all those fruits be sold? Etc. Must have a legal relationship: This must not be a simple invitation where the non-respect of terms is without consequences. [...]
[...] Acceptance Definition of Acceptance Whenever the party to whom an offer has been made accepts it, we can talk about acceptance. In other words, the offeree must accept the proposal of the offerer. Criteria of an Acceptance For this to be valid, there must be certain elements such as: An acceptance has to be absolute and without any condition: As no one can ignore, whenever the offeree proposes new terms on the offer from the offerer, there will be a counteroffer case. [...]
[...] It was held that a valid contract was not formed as the defendants never accepted the counteroffer." From this example, we can better understand the difference between these two concepts. Legal Rules Acceptance must be absolute: This is due to the fact that a qualified and conditional acceptance amounts to a counteroffer, which results in the rejection of the original offer. As mentioned here above, a counter is to avoid in order the maintain the initial offer. The acceptation has to be in its entirety: If only a portion of the offer is accepted, it becomes without effect. Any variation, no matter how little, creates an invalid acceptance. [...]
[...] He certainly has the authority to direct how the offer is to be accepted. However, he cannot specify how it should be refused. There must be no limit of time, etc. -Authority: To be valid, an acceptance must be communicated by the offeree or someone with the authority to accept. Therefore, if the acceptance is communicated by an unauthorized person, it will not result in legal relations. Conclusion Offer and acceptance has always been used in contract law to determine whether an agreement exists between two parties. [...]
APA Style reference
For your bibliographyOnline reading
with our online readerContent validated
by our reading committee
