OFFER, ACCEPTANCE AND ITS COMMUNICATION

You see a flat advertised on a broker's website at a rent you can afford, and you message “Okay, I'll take it.” The broker replies that it was only an ad. A week later the owner posts you a letter saying the rent is going up, but you had already posted your acceptance the day before. Who is bound, and from which moment? Every one of these questions turns on two small words, proposal and acceptance, and on the exact instant each of them becomes complete.

In two minutes

A contract is formed when a proposal, communicated to the other party, is met by an absolute and unqualified acceptance in the prescribed or usual manner; the Act (ss.2-9) fixes exactly when each is complete and how each can be taken back.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Law of Contract and Specific Relief on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.