Essential Elements of a valid contract
Introduction
We have seen above that the two elements of a contract are: (1) an agreement; (2) legal obligation. Section 10 of the Act provides for some more elements which are essential in order to constitute a valid contract. It reads as follows:
“All agreements are contracts if they are made by free consent of parties, competent to contract, for a lawful consideration and with a lawful object and are not hereby expressly declared to be void.”
Thus, the essential elements of a valid contract can be summed up as follows
- Agreement.
- Intention to create legal relationship.
- Free and genuine consent.
- Parties competent to contract.
- Lawful consideration.
- Lawful object.
- Agreements not declared void or illegal.
- Certainty of meaning.
- Possibility of performance.
- Necessary Legal Formalities.
These essential elements are explained briefly.
1. Agreement
As already mentioned, to constitute a contract there must be an agreement. An agreement is composed of two elements—offer and acceptance. The party making the offer is known as the offeror, the party to whom the offer is made is known as the offeree. Thus, there are essentially to be two parties to an agreement. They both must be thinking of the same thing in the same sense. In other words, there must be consensus-ad-idem.
Thus, where ‘A’ who owns 2 cars x and y wishes to sell car ‘x’ for Rs. 30,000. ‘B’, an acquaintance of ‘A’ does not know that ‘A’ owns car ‘x’ also. He thinks that ‘A’ owns only car ‘y’ and is offering to sell the same for the stated price. He gives his acceptance to buy the same.
There is no contract because the contracting parties have not agreed on the same thing at the same time, ‘A’ offering to sell his car ‘x’ and ‘B’ agreeing to buy car ‘y’. There is no consensus-ad-idem.
2. Intention to create legal relationship
As already mentioned there should be an intention on the part of the parties to the agreement to create a legal relationship. An agreement of a purely social or domestic nature is not a contract.
Example
A husband agreed to pay £30 to his wife every month while he was abroad. As he failed to pay the promised amount, his wife sued him for the recovery of the amount.
Held: She could not recover as it was a social agreement and the parties did not intend to create any legal relations.
However, even in the case of agreements of purely social or domestic nature, there may be intention of the parties to create legal obligations. In that case, the social agreement is intended to have legal consequences and, therefore, becomes a contract. Whether or not such an agreement is intended to have legal consequences will be determined with reference to the facts of the case. In commercial and business agreements the law will presume that the parties entering into agreement intend those agreements to have legal consequences.
Examples
- There was an agreement between Rose Company and Crompton Company, where of the former were appointed selling agents in North America for the latter. One of the clauses included in the agreement was: “This arrangement is not… a formal or legal agreement and shall not be subject to legal jurisdiction in the law courts”.
Held that- This agreement was not a legally binding contract as the parties intended not to have legal consequences.
- An agreement contained a clause that it “shall not give rise to any legal relationships, or be legally enforceable, but binding in honour only”.
Held: The agreement did not give rise to legal relations and, therefore, was not a contract.
- An aged couple (C and his wife) held out a promise by correspondence to their niece and her husband (Mrs. and Mr. P.) that C would leave them a portion of his estate in his will, if Mrs. and Mr. P would sell their cottage and come to live with the aged couple and to share the household and other expenses. The young couple sold their cottage and started living with the aged couple. But the two couples subsequently quarreled and the aged couple repudiated the agreement by requiring the young couple to stay somewhere else. The young couple filed a suit against the aged couple for the breach of promise.
Held: That there was intention to create legal relations and the young couple could recover damages.
3. Free and genuine consent
The consent of the parties to the agreement must be free and genuine. The consent of the parties should not be obtained by misrepresentation, fraud, undue influence, coercion or mistake. If the consent is obtained by any of these flaws, then the contract is not valid.
4. Parties competent to contract
The parties to a contract should be competent to enter into a contract. According to
Section 11, every person is competent to contract if he (i) is of the age of majority, (ii) is of sound mind, and (iii) is not disqualified from contracting by any law to which he is subject.
Thus, there may be a flaw in capacity of parties to the contract. The flaw in capacity may be due to minority, lunacy, idiocy, drunkenness or status. If a party to a contract suffers from any of these flaws, the contract is unenforceable except in certain exceptional circumstances.
5. Lawful consideration
The agreement must be supported by consideration on both sides. Each party to the agreement must give or promise something and receive something or a promise in return.
Consideration is the price for which the promise of the other is sought. However, this price need not be in terms of money. In case the promise is not supported by consideration, the promise will be nudum pactum (a bare promise) and is not enforceable at law. Moreover, the consideration must be real and lawful.
6. Lawful object
The object of the agreement must be lawful and not one which the law disapproves.
7. Agreements not declared illegal or void
There are certain agreements which have been expressly declared illegal or void by the law. In such cases, even if the agreement possesses all the elements of a valid agreement, the agreement will not be enforceable at law.
8. Certainty of meaning
The meaning of the agreement must be certain or capable of being made certain otherwise the agreement will not be enforceable at law. For instance, A agrees to sell 10 metres of cloth.
There is nothing whatever to show what type of cloth was intended. The agreement is not enforceable for want of certainty of meaning. If, on the other hand, the special description of the cloth is expressly stated, say Terrycot (80 : 20), the agreement would be enforceable as there is no uncertainly as to its meaning.
However, an agreement to agree is not a concluded contract.
9. Possibility of performance
The terms of the agreement should be capable of performance. An agreement to do an act impossible in itself cannot be enforced. For instance, A agrees with B to discover treasure by magic. The agreement cannot be enforced.
10. Necessary legal formalities
A contract may be oral or in writing. If, however, a particular type of contract is required by law to be in writing, it must comply with the necessary formalities as to writing, registration and attestation, if necessary. If these legal formalities are not carried out, then the contract is not enforceable at law.
