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Agreement: Limited v. Edwards 1969 (1) SA 464) Offer

An agreement is a legally binding contract if it meets the essential elements of being lawful, having intention to contract, being capable of performance, the parties having capacity, and a meeting of the minds. A contract does not need to be in writing to be valid. An offer is a proposal intended to create a contract upon acceptance, and must be clear, intended to create a binding contract if accepted, communicated to the offeree, valid at the time of acceptance, and can be made to one person or many. An invitation to treat is not necessarily an offer, such as displaying an item for sale, and only becomes an offer upon bringing the item to purchase. A contract is formed upon an unconditional, unequivocal acceptance

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141 views2 pages

Agreement: Limited v. Edwards 1969 (1) SA 464) Offer

An agreement is a legally binding contract if it meets the essential elements of being lawful, having intention to contract, being capable of performance, the parties having capacity, and a meeting of the minds. A contract does not need to be in writing to be valid. An offer is a proposal intended to create a contract upon acceptance, and must be clear, intended to create a binding contract if accepted, communicated to the offeree, valid at the time of acceptance, and can be made to one person or many. An invitation to treat is not necessarily an offer, such as displaying an item for sale, and only becomes an offer upon bringing the item to purchase. A contract is formed upon an unconditional, unequivocal acceptance

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Wesley Wede
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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AGREEMENT

A contract is a legally binding agreement between two or more parties meaning that if there is no
intention to make the agreement legally biding it is not a contract. A valid contract is created if
the following essential elements are established:

1. It is lawful
2. There must be intention to contract (animus contrahendi)
3. The contract must be capable of performance
4. The parties must have capacity
5. There must be a meeting of the minds – ad idem

There are other considerations after these elements are established, that is, the contract must not
be vague. The contract must not necessarily be in writing, that is, our law recognizes unwritten
agreement (Jordan v. Trollip 1960 (1) PH A25, Woods v. Walters 1921 AD 303, Springville
Limited v. Edwards 1969 (1) SA 464)

OFFER

An offer is a proposal put forward by a person with the intention that upon acceptance a contract
is created. The person who makes he offer is called the offerer and the one to whom it is made is
called the offeree. An offer must meet the following requirements:

a. It must be clear and not vague (Levenstein v. Levenstein 1955 (3) SA 615 SR)
b. It must be worded in such a manner that upon its acceptance a binding contract is created
c. It must be communicated to the offeree
d. It must be valid at the time of acceptance
e. Can be made to one person or the world

Green Acres Farm v. Hardon Motors 983 (1) ZLR 17 SC

The defendant, Green Acres Farm sent their truck to the plaintiff to check up on the car. The
plaintiff checked and repaired the car. They then presented the invoice to the defendant who
refused to pay arguing that they didn't ask the plaintiff to effect repairs. The defendant succeeded
on that basis.

INVITATION TO TREAT

This is not necessarily an offer but an invitation to do business. (See Crawley v. Rex, Carlille v.
Carbolic Smoke Ball Company)

The difference between offer and invitation o treat is distinguished from the view of the law
because there are scenarios the law says offers are not found or invitations are not found, e.g. a
shop selling 2kg sugar for $3 is making an invitation to treat, it only becomes an offer when the
customer approaches the till with the intention of buying the product. The till operator can accept
or decline.

ACCEPTANCE

A contract comes into being when an offer made with intention to contract is accepted by the
person to whom the offer was addressed. An acceptance must be unconditional, unequivocal and
should bring the contract into existence (See Laws v. Rutherford)

As far as normal offers are concerned an offer made by A can be accepted by B or Cod D but
once an offer is made to B it cannot be accepted by anyone else.

Bird v. Somerville

Bird signed an offer to sell land addressed to Somerville. Somerville purported to accept the
offer with another person. The court upheld Bird’s contention that he had only made an offer to
Somerville and no one else.

Acceptance must be clear and unequivocal meaning you can not make a counter-offer.

As a general rule acceptance must meet the offer. More particularly the acceptance must
correspond in substance. The concern of substance over form means that the minor lack of
correspondence between the offer and acceptance will be ignored.

OPTION

An option is an offer coupled with a time limit. An option can be traded.

RIGHT OF PRE-EMPTION

The holder of the right can accept an offer if they can match the best price offered by a third
party.

RIGHT OF FIRST REFUSAL

The holder of the right has the first opportunity to accept an offer.

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