“Discuss the Agreement between family & social matter which consequences legally binding contract “
Introduction:
For legally binding, a contract must have two necessary mechanisms: 1) an agreement, and 2) consideration. Within the agreement and thought lies an assortment of previous that adds to the legality of a contract. These include the tender, presentation, conditions, circumstances, obligations, disbursement terms, legal responsibility, and failure to pay or breach of the contract.
The agreement part involves offers, counter-offers, as well as eventually what contract law calls the “meeting of the minds.” An agreement can be either oral or written, depending upon the contract. If you hire a taxi to drive you to the airport, next it is a spoken agreement that you have to pay the driver a convinced sum when you reach your purpose. Contracts whose agreements must be in writing include real land contracts and contracts that last more than a year. All the state has its own legal requirements and you should consult these necessities to find the specific regulations that pertain to your type of contract.
The agreement procedure involves one party contribution terms and conditions that are either established or rejected by the further party. If the additional party changes any term or condition of the offer, then the offer becomes a counter-offer. At this peak each party negotiates the terms and conditions of the tender until they have a assembly of the minds. At this time an agreement has been met and a contract can be tired up.
In an agreement to be legal and binding, it has to have some figure of consideration. This means that all parties concerned must receive thought or something of value. Or else, it is considered a gift rather than a contract. The promise of a present is not unavoidably binding, depending on the conditions. Typically deliberation involves one party giving a little such as a product or service, and in exchange the second party gives some type of financial compensation.
The deliberation component of the contract carries up several other provisions that should be notified. These provisions include:
- Obligations and Conditions of the Contract – what kinds of things each party needs to do to fulfill the terms of the contract
- Performance — how sound each party performs the terms of the contract
- Payment Terms — a schedule that identifies when all payments are to be done
- Liabilities — identifies the liability of each party in terms of the contract
- Breach of Contract — what may occur should either party fail to accomplish their end of the agreement
At the time, when compile the agreement and deliberation of a contract, the agreement have to be obvious as to what is especially predictable of each of the contracting parties. An uncertainty or confusion in any part of the contract can lead to problems when tiresome to enforce the provisions of the contract.
Even though not legally required, each contract should contain several provisions known as “boilerplate” provisions. These include:
- Arbitration Clause — creates payment so that argument are handled by an independent arbitrator
- Entire Agreement Clause — utters that what is written in the contract is what the agreements and circumstances of the contact are, and no previous agreements or conditions are valid
- Force Majeure Clause — shapes that should something happens beyond the control of either party (such as a tornado destroying a house while it is still in escrow), then the contract is may not be valid.
Social and Domestic Agreements
Agreement between husband and wife: When a husband and his wife lives together in a single household; make an agreement, courts will assume that they do not mean to be legally bond, unless there is proof to the contrary. Postnuptial and domestic agreements made between spouses are rarely found to result in legally enforceable contracts. This principle was decisively recognized at common law by the early on 20th century case of Balfour v Balfour, where a husband’s assurance to pay his wife an allowance of £30 a week – at the time of his absence on business – was considered unenforceable. At this point, it was stated that as a general rule, agreements between spouses may not be legally enforceable.
This things really decreases itself to an illogicality when one considers it, because if we were to grip that there was a contract in this case we should have to hold that with regard to all the more or less unimportant concerns of life where a wife, at the request of her husband, makes a guarantee to him, which is a promise which can be enforced in law.
This principle is not complete however, and clearly in cases where spouses are not on friendly terms, it is important they be able to make enforceable agreements. Where a husband who left his wife agreed to transfer title of their house to her, if she paid off the remainder of the mortgage, this was detained to be enforceable. This is a necessary division; if it were not the case, it would be overly difficult for unconnected couples to make financial provisions, or to divide property.
Agreements has been made between other family members may also be subject to the question of contractual intention, as exposed in the case of Jones v Padavatton. Here, a mother made a promise to her daughter that she would pay her an allowance of $200 a month, and offer her with a house, if she moved to England and studied for the bar. The Court of Appeal held that the mother held title to the house, as the agreement was simply domestic. Though, Lord Denning stated in Hardwick v Johnson[1] that where good consideration can be shown for a domestic promise, this may rebut the principle that it is planned not to have legal penalty.
Social agreements within friends, work colleagues, and those sharing households, are equally inspects when permitting for intent to create legal relations. Agreements that encompass purely social activities, such as meeting for dinner, are never considered to be legally binding; though, this principle has been extended even where financial bargains have been considered. In Coward v Motor Insurers Bureau, one man’s agreement to pay his work colleague a sum for transport to work was deemed to be informal enough not to be legally binding. Evenly, the winner of a golfing competition failed to recover his prize where no one involved had intended to be legally bound.
Agreements between parent and child: In the context of parents and children it is presumed not to be intended to be binding, although the presumption can be disproved. In Jones v Padavation (1960) the Plaintiff wanted her daughter to give up her current job and study for barrister degree. Her mother decided to volunteer to give her monthly allowance and bought a house for her child, where her mother provided some rooms as rental service from that house. But after trying 5 years when she failed pass her bar examinations, they quarreled, and her mother sought possession of the house. On the fact of the case, the majority of the court of Appeal considered that neither agreement was intended to create legal relations: they were merely family arrangements in which both parties, who had been close at the time, were happily to trust each other to keep the bargain. The mother was therefore entitled to possession of the house.
Social agreements: The presumption that an agreement is not intended to be legally binding is also applied to social relationships between people who are not related. Again, it can be rebutted. Again it can be rebutted. In Simpkins v Pays (1955) the plaintiff enjoyed entering competitions run in Sunday newspapers. When he took lodgings in the defendant’s house, she and her granddaughter began to do the competitions with him, sharing the cost of entry. The plaintiff filled in the forms in the name of the defendant, and she promised to share any winnings. Eventually one of the entries was successful and defendant won $70. The plaintiff claimed a third of the sum as his share of the prize, but the defendant refused, claiming that she had not intended to be legally bound by the agreement. The court upheld the plaintiff’s claim, considering that they had all contributed to the contribution with the expectation that any prize would be shared. Similarly, in Peck v Lateu (1973) the court instituted an intention to create legal relations where two women had agreed to share any money won by either of them at bingo.
The law presumes that social agreements are not intended to be legally binding. For example: Lens v Devonshire Club (1914). Though, if it can be exposed that the transaction had the opposite intention, the court may be prepared to rebut the presumption and to find the necessary meaning for a contract. Here, these cases demonstrate that it is a tricky task to rebut such a presumption.
Agreements among a husband and his wife living together as one household are presumed not to be intended to be legally binding, if the agreement states to the opposing. For an example: Balfour v Balfour [1919].The supposition against a contractual intention will not apply where the spouses are not living jointly in closeness at the time of the agreement.
When a social agreement will have grim penalty for the parties, this may rebut the presumption. For an example: Tanner v Tanner [1975]. It seems that agreements of a family nature between parent and child are likewise supposed not to be planned to be binding. Here the parties to the agreement share a family but are not related, the court resolves inspect all the circumstances.
Reference
Chen-Wishart, Mindy (2007). Contract Law. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-920716-X.
Catherine, E & Frances, Q,.(2003), Contract Law, 4ed.
Chen-Wilshart, p. 114, 115
Coward v Motor Insurers Bureau [1963] 1 QB 359
Furmston, M. P.; Cheshire, Geoffrey; Simpson, Alfred; Fifoot, Cecil (2006). Cheshire, Fifoot and Furmston’s Law of Contract. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-928756-2.
Halson, Roger (2001). Contract Law. Longman. ISBN 0-582-08647-7.
Halson, p. 182
Hardwick v Johnson [1978] 1 WLR 683
Jones v Padavatton [1969] 1 WLR 328
Koffman, Laurence; Macdonald, Elizabeth (2007). The Law of Contract. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-920715-1.
Law Review (Blackwell Publishing) 19 (1).
Merritt v Merritt [1970] 1 WCR 1211 Per Warrington LJ, [1919] 2 KB 571, pp. 574-575
Unger, J (1956). “Intent to Create Legal Relations, Mutuality and Consideration”. The Modern
Unger, p. 96
www.allbusiness.com/law/contract-agreements
[1] Hardwick v Johnson (1978)1 WLR 683