Contract Law

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Recommended: Offer and acceptance contract law cases

Contract Law

On Monday Samantha offered to sell her oboe to Penny for £1,000.

Penny replied

“I will buy it if I can raise the money”. Samantha promised that she

would not sell the oboe to anyone else before Saturday, and added that

Penny could collect the oboe at any time before noon on Saturday. On

Wednesday, Penny phoned and left a message with Samantha’s daughter,

Anne, saying that she had got the money and would collect the oboe on

Saturday morning about 10.30am. Anne forgot to tell her mother about

the phone call. On Thursday morning Samantha was entertaining friends

and discussing the sale of her oboe. Gillian was interested and

offered to buy the oboe for £1,300. Samantha was delighted with the

offer. Samantha posted a letter later that day to Penny saying that

she could no longer have the oboe.

Pat, the Postman, delivered the letter to the wrong address, and

Penny, who was disabled, did not receive the letter. She hired a taxi

on Saturday morning to collect the oboe.

Advise Samantha and Penny of their legal rights.

The problem regarding Samantha and Penny is a very complicated one.

To fully answer it, to advise the two on their legal rights, we must

consider various different legal issues. We must pay particular

attention to offer and acceptance, and to a lesser degree,

consideration.

So initially, we have a straightforward offer from Samantha on Monday

to sell an oboe to Penny for £1000. There is no problem with this

offer, it states clearly the goods for sale and the price required to

purchase them.

The subsequent acceptance is another matter. Penny replies with ‘I

will buy it if...

... middle of paper ...

...ny on the morning of

collection.

To summarise Penny’s situation, she has not presently accepted the

offer but still had the chance to do so. In Samantha’s case, her

attempts to revoke her offer to accept Gillian’s were invalid. The

reason for this is that it is not possible to revoke a ‘firm offer’

during the allotted time when consideration has been shown.

Therefore, Samantha must reject Gillian’s offer to buy the oboe and

comply with the inevitable acceptance from Penny on the Saturday

morning when she arrived to collect the oboe.

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[1] Denning L.J. Entores Ltd v Miles Far East Corporation, [1955] 2

All ER 493

[2] Byrne & Co. v Leon Van Tienhoven & Co. [1880] 5 CPD 344

[3] See case of Thomas v Thomas [1842] 2 QB ; 114 ER 330

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