Why is acceptance important in formation of contract

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If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian. If the offer was for a sale item, after the offeree has been informed the item was sold to someone else, that is an implied communication that the offer has been revoked and it is now too late to accept it.

Under the mirror image rule, no changes are permitted. If you accept an offer, you have to accept it exactly as it was presented to you. You can't make any changes, because any modifications to the original offer make it a counter offer. A counter offer makes the original offer null. Note, however, that simply requesting more information isn't considered a counter offer. If an acceptance period was specified in the offer, it can't be accepted once the period has ended.

Also, if the offer is rejected, it is considered killed and the offeree doesn't have the option to come back and accept it later. If you need help with communication of acceptance in contract law, you can post your legal need on UpCounsel's marketplace. This website uses tools that involve analytical cookies which collect anonymous data to help us improve our site and to ensure that we can offer the best experience to its users. You can disable the placement of these cookies at any time by using the toggle below.

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Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences! As the great student of contract law, Samuel Williston, put it:. It was a consequence of the emphasis laid on the ego and the individual will that the formation of a contract should seem impossible unless the wills of the parties concurred. Although agreements may take any form, including unspoken conduct between the parties UCC Section 1 , they are usually structured in terms of an offer and an acceptance.

Note, however, that not every agreement, in the broadest sense of the word, need consist of an offer and acceptance, and it is entirely possible, therefore, for two persons to reach agreement without forming a contract.

For example, people may agree that the weather is pleasant or that it would be preferable to go out for Chinese food rather than seeing a foreign film; in neither case has a contract been formed. One of the major functions of the law of contracts is to sort out those agreements that are legally binding—those that are contracts—from those that are not. In interpreting agreements, courts generally apply an objective standard. The distinction between objective and subjective standards crops up occasionally when one person claims he spoke in jest.

The company refused, claiming that the statement was made in jest the audience before the commission had laughed when the offer was made. I f the jest is not apparent and a reasonable hearer would believe that an offer was being made, then the speaker risks the formation of a contract which was not intended. It is the objective manifestations of the offeror that count and not secret, unexpressed intentions.

Barnes v. Treece , P. An offer is a manifestation of willingness to enter into a bargain such that it would be reasonable for another individual to conclude that assent to the offer would complete the bargain. Offers must be communicated and must be definite; that is, they must spell out terms to which the offeree can assent. To constitute an agreement, there must be an acceptance of the offer. The offeree must manifest his assent to the terms of the offer in a manner invited or required by the offer.

Complications arise when an offer is accepted indirectly through correspondence. Although offers and revocations of offers are not effective until received, an acceptance is deemed accepted when sent if the offeree accepts in the manner specified by the offeror. If the offeror specifies no particular mode, then acceptance is effective when transmitted as long as the offeree uses a reasonable method of acceptance.

It is implied that the offeree can use the same means used by the offeror or a means of communication customary to the industry.

For example, the use of the postal service was so customary that acceptances are considered effective when mailed, regardless of the method used to transmit the offer. Adams v. Consideration , is the quid pro quo something given or received for something else between the contracting parties in the absence of which the law will not enforce the promise or promises made.

The question is which, if any, is a binding contract? In American law, only situation 2 is a binding contract, because only that contract contains a set of mutual promises in which each party pledges to give up something to the benefit of the other. The question of what constitutes a binding contract has been answered differently throughout history and in other cultures.

For example, under Roman law, any contract that was reduced to writing was binding, whether or not there was consideration in our sense.

Moreover, in later Roman times, certain promises of gifts were made binding, whether written or oral; these would not be binding in the United States. And in the Anglo-American tradition, the presence of a seal was once sufficient to make a contract binding without any other consideration.