Discuss five valid essentials of a contract
Essentials of a contract
- Offer and acceptance: There must be a lawful order and a lawful acceptance of the offer thus resulting in an agreement.
- Lawful consideration: An agreement is legally enforceable only when each of the parties to it gives something and gets something. The something given or obtained is the price for the promise and called consideration.
- Intention to create legal relation: There must be an intention among the parties that the agreement should be attached by legal consequences and create legal obligations.
- Free consent: Free consent of all parties to an agreement is another essential element of a valid contract. It means that the parties must have agreed upon the same thing in the same sense. There is absence of free consent; if the agreement is included by coercion, undue influence, fraud, mistake etc.
- Capacity of parties: The parties to an agreement must be competent to contract otherwise it cannot be enforced by a court of law. In order to competent contract, the parties must be of the age of majority and of sound mind and must not be disqualified from contracting by any law to which they are subject.
- Lawful object: For the formation of a valid contract, it is also necessary that the parties to an agreement must agree for a lawful object. The object for which the agreement has been entered into must not be fraudulent or illegal or immoral or opposed to public policy or must not imply injury to the person or property of another.
- Possibility of performance: Another essential feature of a valid contract is that it must be capable of performance. If the act is impossible in itself, physically or legally the agreement cannot be enforced at law.
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