Consideration

Your neighbour promises to give you ₹10,000 on your birthday. You turn up; he laughs and says he changed his mind. Can you sue? Now suppose you had agreed to paint his flat for ₹10,000 and he refuses to pay after you finish. Can you sue then? The difference is consideration: the thing each side gives for the other's promise. Without it, most promises are just words.

In two minutes

Consideration is something done, abstained from or promised at the desire of the promisor (s.2(d)); an agreement without it is void (s.25) unless it falls in one of three exceptions, and the court does not weigh its adequacy.

The rest of this chapter

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