READJUSTING DEBT AND WRITING CONTRACTS

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When you get married, the sufficient considerations are your emotional, physical, and financial services. For it, your spouse agrees to do a particular thing: provide equivalent services for you.

When you make a phone call, the sufficient consideration is the number of coins you put in the slot. For it, the telephone company agrees to do a particular thing: put you through clearly for three minutes to the local number called. If you use a slug, or the phone company connects you to a wrong number or a line heavy with static, that's a breach of the contract.

We are by tradition and practice a society based on contractual relations-from the informal and commonplace (switching on electric power for the TV, getting on a bus, ordering a hamburger) to the rigidly structured and significant (buying a house or car, taking out a bank loan, signing an employment contract). The legal definition of a contract is "an agreement upon sufficient consideration to do or not do a particular thing:" Comment legal authorities M. J. and J. S. Ross: "In civil law, the contract is the basic legal concept, the foundation of all legal relations:"

A CONTRACT SOCIETYWe are by tradition a society based on contractual relations from ordering a hamburger to taking out a bank loan.

That's why common law considers contracts binding and enforceable in courts of law. Today's statutes on contracts, which have grown out of the common law, are incorporated in the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), adopted by most states. Those states that have not subscribed to the UCC have enacted their own statutory versions of it. In all states, the law gives you the right to enter into contracts and to go the courts, if necessary, to have them carried out or to provide redress when breached.

The Basic Rules Governing Contracts

What are the essential elements of a contract?

A. The offer. The offer is a promise to do (or not do) something specific in return for the other party or parties doing something specific (or not doing something specific). When you promise your brother-in-law you'll pay him X dollars to repair your plumbing if he promises to do the job by such-and-such a date, that's an offer.

B. The acceptance. This is when your brother-in-law agrees to your offer.

C. The consideration. Consideration is when you get something in return (repaired plumbing) for what you give (X dollars). Although there are some exceptions, without consideration for each party to an agreement, there's no contract.

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