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Law of Contract. Tony Walmsley and Emma Teare. Requirements for a contract. Offer + Acceptance = Agreement Consideration Intention to Create Legal Relations. Offer or Invitation to Treat?. An offer once accepted creates an agreement An offer can be contrasted with an invitation to treat
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Law of Contract Tony Walmsley and Emma Teare
Requirements for a contract • Offer + Acceptance = Agreement • Consideration • Intention to Create Legal Relations
Offer or Invitation to Treat? • An offer once accepted creates an agreement • An offer can be contrasted with an invitation to treat • An invitation to treat is an invitation to enter negotiations • The “acceptance” of an invitation to treat does NOT create an agreement • It is not always easy to distinguish between an offer and an invitation to treat
Offer or Invitation to Treat? In certain types of standard transactions (e.g. display of goods, advertisements) there are some general rules that apply as to whether or not an offer has been made (can be rebutted)
Advertisements • Generally these are Invitations to Treat NOT offers • If an advert in the paper was an offer the person who placed the advertisement would be required to contract with anyone/everyone who wanted to purchase the goods at the price stated
Examples of Invitations to Treat • Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain v Boots [1953] 1 QB 401 • Partridge v Crittenden [1968] 1 WLR 1204 • Fisher v Bell [1961] 1 QB 394
Some adverts ARE offers • Often this is the case in UNILATERAL contracts • The leading case is…
Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co [1893] 1 QB 256 Court of Appeal
Rewards are often offers • Gibbons v Proctor (1891) 64 LT 594 • Taylor v Allon [1966] 1 QB 304 • R v Clarke (1927) 40 CLR 227 • Williams v Cawardine (1833) 5 C & P 566
Example question: ‘Chris offered to sell: a) his Hornby train set to Richard…..’ Is this necessarily an offer in the legal sense?