Contract Law in Ireland-the Essentials - YouTube

in your daily life whether you are aware of it or not

contract law plays a huge part when you go to the shop to buy a litre of milk or a

sandwich at lunch time when you buy a Luas ticket or a dart ticket or a bus

ticket or any sort of a transport ticket when you buy a car when you buy a house

when you sell a house your contract of employment

all of these are instances of a contract coming into contact with your daily life

and in this video I'm going to look at the essentials of contract law in ireland

okay the first thing you need to know about a contract contract law is what is

contract as I say the huge feature of our daily lives it's the legal

definition it's an agreement enforceful at law between two or more

parties whereby rights are acquired by one or more persons in return for

certain acts or forbearances on the part of the other or others the parties

essentially agree to terms and conditions and provided you and the

other party are in agreement and have negotiated your terms and conditions

unless those terms and conditions are outside the law or unlawful then you will

have a valid contract and it's up to you and the other party to decide what you

want to put in it there are three components of contract

a valid enforceable contract one agreement agreement between the parties

between you and the other person - 2 is consideration and three is the intention

to create legal relations let's have a look at those three building blocks of a

contract in relation to agreement you're going to need offer

you're gonna need acceptance and you're gonna need to ensure that the offer and

acceptance are clear and unequivocal an invitation to treat is not an offer an

invitation to treat is for example when a solicitor like myself might send out a

contract for the sale of property it is only when the other party having got

legal advice from their solicitor signs the contract and returns it that

is when an offer comes in - into being however prior to that when I send out

the contract that is only an invitation to treat another example of invitation -

to treat could be advertising in general in other words to certain offers made etc

etc but a lot of it could be in the way of considered to be invitations to treat

and terms and conditions will apply and you will probably see a small message at the

bottom of a lot of adverts stating the terms and conditions apply to any

particular offer an offer can be withdrawn and it can be

accepted it can be rejected or a counteroffer can be made and if a

counteroffer is made well then the original offer is not accepted it's

essential too for a binding contract or a valid contract to come into being that

there is an intention to create legal relations a social agreement or offer

does not create a contract the parties must have intended to create legal

relations and be legally bound for example if I promise you tell you that

I'll meet you for coffee tomorrow as one o'clock in O'Connell Street or Grafton

Street or if I promise to bring you to a hurling match or football match or a

rugby match next weekend and fail to do so that is not it's just a social

agreement it's a social promise we may have agreed to meet up you may have

agreed to buy me a pint in return for me giving you the lift but it's not going

to be a valid contract and neither of us then can sue on foot of it so if I

don't show up or if you don't buy the pint you cannot or we cannot sue each

other consideration then is something that must be present in a contract and

it is something of value it must have legal value now having said

that even a peppercorn or one euro is sufficient consideration but there must

be consideration that has legal value past consideration is not sufficient to

enforce new a contract contracts then can be oral or written it's easier obviously

if there's a dispute to enforce the contract if it's in writing because the

terms and conditions of the agreement are clearly

ascertainable however if you go into a shop and buy a pound of mince or if you

go into a butcher shop or go and buy a liter of milk or whatever there's no

written contract there but you have a contract and you are protected by

contract law and by statute and there is a contract there in being and implied

terms obviously and even in Express terms courtesy of statute would be that

the stuff that's being sold to you is of merchantable quality and is fit for

purpose and so on and so forth but just because you don't have to sign a written

contract to say that you're getting you know five litres of milk and 2 sliced

pans doesn't mean that there's no contract in place there certainly is and

you can sue for breach of contract if anything arises from that

some other contractual issues then to be considered would be things like undue

influence and duress they will render a contract voidable so you can't put so

much pressure on somebody or take advantage of them to the point where

they are only signing or entering into the contract with you under duress that

would be a void of a contract and if there is any dispute and it goes to court

then the likelihood is a court will simply set it aside contracts for an

illegal purpose that should be an illegal purpose on the slide or against

public policy will not be enforced by the courts also capacity is an issue a

party must have capacity to enter into the contract now an adult a person over 18

years of age has capacity to enter into a contract that's assuming that they're

not being taken advantage of or are under a disability for example they may

be suffering from a serious drug addiction or drug problem or under the

influence of drugs or drink at the time also you may have people who have

diminished responsibility or who have many human or psychological or

psychiatric problems those people are under restricted capacity to enter into

a contract so that's something that you know needs to be borne in mind the

person entering into the contract must have capacity to do so there are special

rules for minors and for those under a disability so a minor can only enter into a

contract with the benefit of a guardian

terms of a contract then would include Express terms so Express terms are what

you set out in the contract itself what is written in the contract there would

also be implied terms for example in the contract of employment there would be an

implied term that if you're an employee you're not going to rob your employer

blind or if you're an employer that you're not going to treat your employee

like a slave so these are implied terms which are implied into all contracts and

also other implied terms in a contract of employment for example will be left

both parties would be entitled to enjoy the trust and confidence of the other

these things don't have to be spelled out they are applied into the contract

the terms then also of a contract can be conditions or warranties if a condition

is breached well then the contract can be repudiated it can be just set aside

sell it not if a warranty is breached well then damages is the appropriate

remedy for the aggrieved party

contract can be void it can be voidable it can be unenforceable now it may be

for the ordinary person and indeed for a solicitor sometimes too may be difficult

to differentiate between these three categories but it's worth noticing that

if for example somebody enters into a contract or two parties enter into a

contract under a completely obvious misunderstanding or obvious mistake

that's fundamental to the contract then the contract is simply going to be

unenforceable avoidable contract would be one which may be a minor or maybe

somebody under a disability has entered into but again all of these things will

depend on the particular circumstances how do you end a contract you end a

contract by performance in other words both parties perform the contract for

example if it was a contract of employment then both parties if it's for

a fixed term for example maybe two year fixed term contract well then the

contract is over at the end of the two years and both parties have performed a

contract it could be ended by agreement pardonable parties can agree just to

end the contract for whatever reason it can be ended by discharge by notice for

example in a contract of employment again or indeed in a lease there will be

a notice period which will allow you to terminate the contract you send us you

can be discharged by operation of law for example if you're a lorry driver and

you obviously need your driving license to drive your lorry and do the job

then it's quite possible that if there's a change in the law which

renders your license unfit for the particular purpose that you need that it

may well be that the contract is discharged by operation of law in other

words something that's completely beyond your control it can be discharged by

frustration again a sales rep or somebody who needs the car if they as a

fundamental part of discharging their duties is doing the job if they for

example lose their license through drink driving or whatever and then the

contract would be at an end through frustration because the party is

unable to fulfill his or her duties on the contract likewise in an employment

contract if the employee is ill and so ill as to not be able to perform the

contract to perform the work for which she was employed but then eventually

that contract is going to be ended simply by the frustration because the

party is unable to discharge her duties it can be ended by a breach as well

obviously an employee or indeed a tenant or landlord or whoever one of the

parties can always breach a contract and the contract then can be ended in that

way remedies for breach well the most common remedy would be damages there is

also quantum merit in other words this is getting paid

to reflect the work that you've done for example a sufficient amount would be

could be paid for work you've carried out perhaps under a misapprehension or

perhaps where the other party has allowed you go ahead and perform work or

perform a service or provide goods and then they stand back and say I never

asked you to do that there's no contract in relation to that situation here is

that the other party has allowed you to go ahead and work away under a

misunderstanding or misapprehension well then the law recognizes that it would be

unconscionable for the other party to benefit from that sort of thing so you

will be paid we'd be looking for from a court quantum Mara in other words

what your work is worth or what your goods were worth in other words a

sufficient amount specific performance is another remedy for breach of contract

so if you enter into a contract to buy for example a piece of property you pay

a deposit you sign the contract and then you're unable to compete you could be

sued for specific performance a court may order that you perform you perform

the contract and complete the sale complete the purchase you may have

discovered that the property is not what you thought it was or that there's some

new development that's going to impact it well if you've entered into a

contract you can be sued for specific performance likewise a court can

award an injunction it can award an injunction for you to do something or

that cease to do something but again breach a contract these are the four

remedies there are various statutes and laws on

the statute books that deal with contract the sale of goods and supply of

services act nineteen eighty is one that will impact you if for example you

are the consumer or you buy a car or you buy stuff in in a retail environment in

that if you buy a shopping center or wherever a lot of your remedies or the

protections for you as a consumer and as part of the contract will be set out in

in statute in the sale of goods and supply services act nineteen eighty

likewise the Consumer Protection Act of 2007 and likewise the land and

conveyancing Law Reform Act of 2009 sets out statute statutory remedies and

statutory provisions in relation to a contract for the sale of land the

Memorandum of the evidence - evidence the contract and so on and so forth so

these are statutes which deal with contract but again to circle back to the

very beginning the points I made at the outset contract is something that we

come into contact with on a daily basis my name is Terry Gorry and hope you find

this video useful if you do you might give me a thumbs up down below and you

might be interested in subscribing to my youtube channel if you haven't

ready thank you

you