Requirements of Valid Contract as per English Law

The provided document discusses the essential elements required for a valid contract in English law. It outlines the need for an offer, acceptance, capacity to contract, consideration, and intention among parties. Additionally, it highlights the importance of incorporating specific clauses in contracts, such as standard terms and conditions, attention to each party's intentions, clear language, applicable laws, consideration clarification, intent to create a legal relation, denial of performance with penalties, and signing by both parties. The document aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of contract validity and incorporation in English law.

PRINCIPLES OF
CONTRACT LAW

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Question 5. Requirements of valid contract as per the English Contract Law.......................1
Question 7. Discussion on the way contract clauses are validly incorporated.......................2
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION
Contract law shows the intention of entering into a legal relationship through an
agreement by parties to contract. Present report includes brief discussion about elements required
to make any contract valid along with the clauses to be included in contract for incorporating it
validly.
MAIN BODY
Question 5. Requirements of valid contract as per the English Contract Law
Contract:
 According to the provisions of English law, contract is a legal relation in between two
parties in order to complete their part of performance (Abdullah and Bachri, 2018). For exchange of consideration as per the agreement created by them.
Requirements of valid contract:
For making any contract valid, following elements are required:
Offer:
Any contract starts after offer is given by the one party to another. It is a statement which
is being prepared for the purpose of creating contractual relation in between parties. Example:
advertisement, catalogs, etc. (Stoica and Bostan, 2015).
Acceptance:
Acceptance turns the offer into a contract. It needs to be unconditional. If party makes
any changes in the offer before accepting it, it is termed as a counter-offer. Silence also can't be
amounted as acceptance.
Capacity to contract:
For making any contract valid, it is required that all parties to the contract must have
capacity of understanding terms of contract. Law has provided some capacity that is needed to be
in the person entering into contract like:
 Party must have completed minimum age of 18 years at the time of entering into contract.
 No party must suffer any mental disorder at the time of entering into contract and must be
of sound mind.
In case any party is not fulfilling minimum capacity to contract, it will become invalid.
Consideration:
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Contract must contain some valid consideration against party's part of performance. Any
gift, legal duty or any illegal payment will not be included for the calculation of consideration
(How to form a valid contract, 2018).
Intention:
Every agreement can't be termed as a contract. It is the major requirement that parties
entertaining into the contract must have intention to create a legal relation in between them. For
example: agreement between friends to meet at a decided place can't be treated as a contract.
For the purpose of creating a legal contract, all above conditions are needed to be fulfilled
by parties to contract at the time of entering into contract.
Question 7. Discussion on the way contract clauses are validly incorporated
For the purpose of incorporating any contract validly, following conditions are needed to
be fulfilled by the parties to the contract:
 A major clause of a valid contract is that terms and conditions need to be in accordance
with the legal policies of country (Wang, 2015).
 Parties need to send standard terms and conditions of the contract to each other in order
to remove any confusion related to contract.
 Both the parties must draw attention of other party in order to ensure their intention of
entering into contract.
 Contract agreement must be written in language which could be easily understood by
both the parties.
 In case both parties are of different nation, clause must include the law which would be
applicable on the contract in case of any dispute.
 Consideration clause need to be clarified by both the parties to contract. Contract must
include a reasonable consideration for both parties.
 Contract must include a clause that both parties are having intention to create a legal
relation in between them.
 It should contain clauses through which parties can deny performing their part along with
penalty to be paid by the party denying for performance.
 Contract also needs to be signed by both the parties in order to ensure that both are
having intention to fulfill their part of performance and known to all the terms and
conditions of contract as well (Validity of Exclusion Clauses in Contract Law, 2014).
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 For the purpose of incorporating any contract validly, it is also required that no clause,
term or condition included in contract is against the legal provisions of country.
If all the above clauses are present in contract incorporated, it can be termed as a valid
contract.
CONCLUSION
With the help of above discussion, it can be concluded that for the purpose of creating
any valid contract, parties involved need to add all the elements required for a valid contract.
Parties also need to include all clauses provided by the English Contract Law for the purpose of
incorporating any contract validly.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Abdullah, Z. and Bachri, R., 2018, July. Hybrid Contract on Sharia Life Insurance in Indonesia.
In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science. 175(1). p. 012129. IOP
Publishing.
Ashworth, A. and Perera, S., 2018. Contractual procedures in the construction industry.
Routledge.
Stoica, A. and Bostan, I., 2015. The relative conditions for the valid conclusion of a contract,
under the New Civil Code. Acta Universitatis George Bacovia. Juridica. 4(2). pp.511-
530.
Wang, F., 2015. The incorporation of terms into commercial contracts: A reassessment in the
digital age.
Online
How to form a valid contract. 2018. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.rocketlawyer.co.uk/article/how-to-form-a-valid-contract.rl>
Validity of Exclusion Clauses in Contract Law. 2014. [Online]. Available through:
<http://www.dangelolegal.com.au/news/validity-exclusion-clauses-contract-law/>
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