Hi all.
Also not a lawyer, but have had some legal schooling relating to my
financial planning practise.
In Canada (we follow British law in principle) a contract needs
1. Offer
2.Acceptance
3. Consideration.
Offer and acceptance are fairly straight forward. "I will sell you X for
$y". "I accept". That's it. The "consideration" can be ANYTHING of ANY
monitary value, $1 is recognised as a "token consideration" but
consideration nonetheless. The court does not care about the adequacy of
the offer, only that the 3 conditions are present.
Some points to ponder:
1. The offer must be accepted EXACTLY as offered or no contract is formed.
"I'll sell you X for $y".... "No, that's too much, how about 7/10 $y" is an
offer and a counter offer. If the offeror A says yes to the counter offer
of B then A has accepted B's offer, not vice versa (small point but
important).
Verbal contracts are acceptable but difficult to enforce.
A verbal contract that is then put in written form is common, and there are
rights on both parties if there is a "mistake" in the transcription.
There are different remedies for breach of contract. Recision tries to put
the parties as they were before the contract was made. Amendment of a
contract is only done if there has been a mistake in transcription or
similar. Damages may be awarded if the contract cannot be enforced for
certain reasons.
IMHO, and definitely not formal legal advice, if A offered to sell B a minty
spitfire worth, say $7500 for $750 and a contract was made and consideration
paid... should something happen whereby A cannot supply B with the car, B
would be able to collect $7500 in law - as this would put him in similar
position as if he had collected the car. A, presumably, either sold the car
for $7500 to someone else or it was destroyed and he'd have collected
insurance.
Here IS my formal advice: The law is an ass, not always fair, and not
always enforceable or worth enforcing. Ignorance of the law is not a valid
defence, and common sense is not always common.
Dave T
...loopholes are fun?
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