Legal issues.doc

Legal issues

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Legal issues

The five critical constituents of an enforceable agreement entail
certainty, consideration, intention, offer, and acceptance. An offer is the
willingness of an individual to bind himself to terms. These are only
those established by the offer and included in it. It is made up of terms
where the offeror which is the party that comes up with the offer willingly
accepts to be bound. This is made to the offeree who is the offer recipient
who must accept the expressed method where stipulated by the offeror
(Bayern, 2015).

Acceptance is when the individual (s) to whom an offer is made
communicates a complete and without conditions recognition of the terms in
the offer exceptions, however, are present in the postal regulations as
well as unilateral offer. Acceptance of the terms of the offeror should be
without conditions. In most cases, this constitutes yep or nope as an
answer to the made offer. There are circumstances where this simple
exercise is not feasible and necessitates courts to provide direction on
the manner in which acceptance can be enacted. It could be accepted
through conduct but not silence.

Consideration is also referred to as the promised price. A
straightforward agreement could be an awful haggle, but it should be
enforceable. The parties must intend that the consensus should institute a
contract that is legally binding and not merely a social arrangement.
Consideration is critical in all contracts unless it is enacted through
deed. This is anything of assessment which is offered and acts as an
enticement of entering into a contract (Lücke, 2007).

Intention: the parties should intend to have an agreement to come up
with legal relations that will create a contract that is enforceable.
However, presumptions do exist in the case of social and domestic
agreements as well as business and commercial agreements.

Certainty is where a contract's terms should be adequately clear and
accurate for enforcement. This is so because a court identifies the terms
of a contract through looking into the parties actions. Consequently, they
must be carefully and accurately drafted for ease of interpretation since
courts never rewrite agreements that are poorly drafted (Bayern, 2015).

Contract Example

Central London Property Trust v High Trees House Ltd [1956] 1 All ER
256

High Trees House decided to lease some flats from the Central London
Property in 1938. However, occupancy in these flats remarkably reduced
following the outbreak of war and the resulting bombings. To minimize
adverse effects which include un-occupancy, High Trees would enter a new
agreement where the rent was to be decreased by 50%.

However, by 1945, the flats had become fully occupied making Central
London Properties demand that the full rent should be paid. It was also
ruled by the Jury that the full rent should be paid so long as the flats
are fully occupied. However, standing his ground, Denning J asserted that
any effort to claim rent balance between 1940 to 1945 was not admissible
under the promissory doctrine estoppels since High trees used the promise
that was made of no claiming of full rent.

The offer here was made by Central London Property who offered to
reduce the rent by 50% in situations where the flats are not fully
occupied. The original rent was to be £ 2,500 per annum, but given the
difficulties experienced by tenants to pay rent during the war, the
landlords made an agreement in writing, to reduce this to £ 1,500. This is
particularly so because at the beginning of the war in 1937 few of the
flats were occupied. However, there was no specified duration in which this
agreement would apply neither was there any consideration for it.

Acceptance: the agreement was done in writing and both parties
ascended their signatures to it. This means that it was accepted by both
parties. The promise to reduce the rent was made to be legally binding and
was acted upon by tenants who went on to pay 50% of the rent for 8 years up
to 1945 when the entire flats were occupied. This is the time the Central
London Property went to court seeking full payment of the rent. However,
given that they both appended their signatures to the agreement in writing
it means they would not be permeated to act inconsistently to the agreement
for it was legally binding.

Consideration: there was no consideration in this agreement for it was
acted under the deed to be enforceable for 99 years. However, the court
ruled that incase two parties get into a contract with the objective of
creating legal dealings between them in the pursuance of this kind of
agreement one individual will make an assurance to another knowing that it
will be dealt with and which is essentially acted on by the promisee. A
jury treats the assurance as binding to the promisor so that he would not
be allowed to be inconsistent with it even if it is not strictly supported.


Intention: the parties did have an intention because the jury
interpreted that the arrangement that was made between them on reducing
rent was binding on the company of the plaintiff and its active nature was
sustained by the continued existent of the conditions that brought it into
fold. However, the ceasing of these conditions nullified the agreement that
entitled the plaintiff to retake the ground rent.

Certainty; the agreement was accurately drafted for the court was not
forced to rewrite it. As a matter of fact it was placed under seal and
could thus not be mixed by a patrol agreement or any consensus not under
seal. The plaintiffs were thus entitled to recover the rent at the rate of
£ 2,500 per annum.

The circumstances of a breach of contract: these would have been made
had there been a fresh agreement. This is so because the agreement was
enacted without consideration and was solely of temporary character given
the grave situation at the beginning of the war. However, it was argued
that rent reduction was done to ensure that the defendant were able to
sustain the running of their company it would thus be a breach of contract
for them to ask for more money yet what was written in their minute book
was evidence of the agreement.

Possible remedies: a contract should never be varied excluding a
contract of equal value. Equity courts have in most cases, been at liberty
to permeate the rescission or discrepancy by an uncomplicated contract of
an agreement under seal through the prevention of a party that has agreed
to a rescission from suing under deed.













References

Bayern, S. J. (2015). Offer and Acceptance in Modem Contract Law: A
Needless Concept. California Law Review, 103(1), 67-101.

Central London Property Trust v High Trees House Ltd [1956] 1 All ER 256

Lücke, H. K. (2007). Simultaneity and Successiveness in Contracting.
European Review Of Private Law, 15(1), 27-57.