Establishing a legally binding contract Agreement o Offer o Acceptance Agreement has to be expressed in a form sufficiently certain for the

he courts to enforce Agreement must be supported by consideration Agreement must be entered into a particular form Parties must have intention to create legal relations o Courts are concerned with the intention of the parties, objectively ascertained (not subjective- to promote certainty in legal system) o i.e. there may still be a contract if the parties may have been objectively said to agree, even if they did not in fact agree Objectivity in Contract Promisor objectivity: the promise is to be understood in the way in which it would have been understood by a reasonable person in the position of the promisor Promisee objectivity: position of the promisee Detached objectivity: independent of the two parties in the contract o Smith v Hughes OATS (If, whatever a man's real intention may be, he so conducts himself that a reasonable man would believe that he was assenting to the terms proposed by the other party, and that other party upon that belief enters into the contract with him, the man thus conducting himself would be equally bound as if he had intended to agree to the other party's terms (Blackburn, J).) o Hartog v Colin & Shields: judgment combined subjective and objective elements, based on the extent of the disparity between the price per piece, the judge was led to believe that it was a case of snapping up, as in Chwee Kin Keong v. Digilandmall.Com Pte Ltd. The role of Fault- cases in which the mistake in relation to the terms of contract has been caused by one of the parties Denny v Hancocok (property for sale by auction, map including trees) Tamplin v James (sale of property, buyer thought two pieces of garden were included) Scriven Brothers & Co. v Hindley and Co. (Hemp and tow auction) All three cases were brought by seller; Denny and Scriven ruled in

favour of the defendant, as seller was at fault for creating the mistake in the mind of the buyer. In Tamplin the fault was that of the buyer. *Specific performance: a legal remedy, an order of the court which requires a party to perform a specific act, usually what is stated in a contract (Denny and Tamplin, as compared to Scriven where the sellers action was one to recover the price) In cases where the defendant does not merely deny the plaintiffs claim, but counterclaims for specific performance of his version of the contract it will necessarily be more apparent that the court views the question from the perspectives of both parties. Vorster