Contract Law: Formation of Contracts

Explore how offers and acceptances form contracts, the role of consideration, distinguish offers from invitations to treat, and apply the mirror image and postal rule to timing.

Explore consideration in contract formation, defined as a detriment or benefit in exchange for a promise, including valuable and past consideration and practical examples.

Explore promissory estoppel as an equitable alternative to consideration in contract formation. Learn the requirements—pre-existing relationship, unequivocal promise, reliance—and how it suspends rights when inequitable.

Identify how certainty and intention to create legal relations shape contract formation, explaining how prior dealings, custom, or reasonableness resolve vagueness, and distinguishing social versus commercial presumptions to determine enforceability.

Explore express terms in contracts, including identifying terms, distinguishing representations, incorporation methods (signature, notice, dealings), and interpretation principles (meaning, contract as a whole, parole evidence) with case examples.

Identify and interpret implied terms in contracts alongside express terms, using four sources: implied by fact, by law, by custom, and by statute; apply the business efficacy and necessity tests.

Explore the battle of the forms in contract formation, examining offer and acceptance, the doctrine, exceptions, and how terms from each party influence the contract, with a practical pub scenario.

Examine contract formation with practice questions on offers, acceptance, counter offers, revocation, and consideration, including postal acceptance and intention to create legal relations.