An Offer Is a Proposal Made by One Party to Another

An offer is a proposal made by one party (offeror) to another (oferee) indicating a willingness to enter a contract.(Brown and Sukys pg 153)

To constitute a contract there must be an offer and an acceptance. The party making the offer is known as the offeror and the party to whom the offer is made is known as offeree.

An offer may be made orally, in writing or by conduct to a definite person or group of persons or to the whole world and it must be communicated to the offeree.

An offer can be terminated in various circumstances such as lapse of offer, revocation of offer, rejection of offer, mental acceptance and particular method acceptance.

Lapse of offer is the termination method due to the death of offeree or offeror before acceptance of an offer or by non-acceptance within the time stipulated for acceptance, or within a reasonable time.

lt should noted that although death of offeror or offeree before acceptance terminates the offer, death after acceptance has no effects on the majority of contracts.

-Some offers are made within a specific time, therefore must be accepted almost immediately. Where an offer is made by telegram, the mode of offer indicate” prima facie” that the acceptance should be quick also, and in this case a reply by letter may be too late. Other offers may be accepted within a month or even longer.

Example: in Ramsgate Victoria Hotel Co. Ltd vs. Montefiore {1866}

“M by letter on 8 June offered the purchase share in a company. The shares were allotted on 23rd November refused the shares. Held that the offer to take share lapsed through unreasonable delay in accepting.”

Revocation of offer-is the method of terminating an offer or offer withdrawal method directly or indirectly by the offeror. In this case there must be communication to the offeree before acceptance.The revocation has no effect until is brought to the notice of the offeree.

Example; In Byrne vs. Van Tienhoven {1880}

“On 1st October, defendant V offered by letter goods for sale to B on 11october B received the letter and accepted by telegraph immediately. On 8 October V wrote to B revoking the offer. On 20 October B received the letter of revocation. Held that B had accepted the offer on 11 October”. Revocation to be effective must be communicated to the offeree before he has accepted. The fact that a letter of revocation had been posted or was on its way was immaterial.”

In this case where notice of revocation of an offer does not come directly from the offeror or his agent, but from a reliable source it is deemed indirect revocation.

Rejection of offer: This may take two forms:(1)where the offeree communicates his rejection to the offeror and (2)where the offeree makes a counter-offer.

When the offeree accepts an offer to a condition, this is also amount to a rejection. The offeror must be clear to the offeree. There must be no “Ifs” or “Buts” in offer acceptance.(Richard Bruce pg 256)

Example: In Jordan vs. Norton (1838)

“N offered to buy J’S horse if warranted quite in harness agreed to the price and said he would warrant the horse quite in double harness. Held that N’s offer was rejected.”

Mental acceptance:-This means asserting to an offer in ones mind but not actually communicating acceptance.

Example: In Felt house vs. Bindley(1862)

“F offered by letter to buy his nephew’s horse for £ 30.F wrote: If I hear no more about him, l shall consider the horse the horse is mine at £30.The nephew did not reply but he asked the auctioneer who was engaged to sell the horse to keep the horse out of the sale because he had sold it to his uncle. By error the auctioneer Bindley, include the horse in the sale and F sued B for conversion. Held that F had no claim since his offer to buy had only been mentally accepted by the nephew. It had not been communicated to the offeror.”

Particular method of acceptance: Where the offeror prescribes a particular method of acceptance, it follows that the method prescribed should normally be followed. Thus where acceptance of an offer is to be by telegram, acceptance by air mail would be insufficient because it does not comply with the terms of the offer.

2.To discuss whether an intention to create legal relation is an essential in Tanzania laws of contract.

A contract can be define as every promise and every set of promise forming the consideration for each party that can be enforceable by law.

For a contract to be void able it must include within the following elements; agreement, consensus, free consent, contractual capacity, lawful consideration, lawful object, intention to create legal relation, certainty of meaning and not expressly declared void.

A contract is an agreement that is intended to have legal consequences. Whether or not an agreement is intended to have such consequences is not always easily determined .It had mentioned that agreement of a purely social or domestic are not contracts. However there are some domestic agreement which do create legal relation. .(David Barker &Colin Padfield pg 104)

Example. In Simpkins vs. Pays (1955).

S agreed with P and P `s grand-daughter to go share in a weekly coupon submitted in a fashion competition. A forecast by the grand-daughter proved correct and defendant receive a prize of £ 750. Plaintiff sued for his share of £ 250. Held, that there was an intention to create legal relation.

Evidence showed that there was a joint enterprise and the parties expected to share any prize won in the competition. It was not a mere domestic agreement.

Also in Parker vs. Clark (1960).

An aged couple made an arrangement by correspondence with their niece and her husband where by the latter couple sold their home in Sussex in order to leave the aged couple and to share the household and other expenses. The two couple subsequently quarreled and the parker were ordered to leave the house. Held, that there was an intention to create legal relations and damages were awarded to the plaintiff.(David Barker &Colin Padfield pg 104)

The Tanzania Laws of contract cap 345 Revised Edition 2002, Section 10 define voidable contract as “all agreements made by the free consent of parties components to contract, for lawful consideration and with a lawful object, and are not hereby expressly declared to be void provided that nothing herein contained shall affect any law in force and not hereby expressly repealed or disapplied, by which any contract is required to be made in writing or in the presence of whiteness, or any law relating to the registration of document”.(pg 14)

An intention to create legal relation is not mentioned in this section though it is very important in decision making on social or domestic cases related to the above mentioned examples and other related such as to play a friendly match, to dine at a friend’s place to see move as to mention but few.

R E F E R E N C E S:

Chris Turner. Contract law,.

David Barker and Colin Pad field , Law, 1996,

M. P. Furmston, Law of Contracts ,1976 ,9th Edition

Paul Denham, Law-a Modern Introduction,1999, 4th Edition.

Richard Bruce ,Success in law, 2001,5th Edition.

Tanzania Law of contract ,cap 345,R.E.2002