Chrissy asked:

Are verbal contracts binding?

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In English Law oral contracts are generally binding. The exceptions are contracts for the sale of land
and contracts for the assignments of debts. These have to be written.

Of course, the difficulty with an oral contract, if you want to sue on it, is proving in Court that it exists
and what its terms are.

John Sartoris

In English law, all contracts are binding and have legal force insofar as they create legal
responsibilities, generate rights and obligations and allow for recourse to the legal system if
responsibilities and are not met. There are cases when contracts are not binding, such as when a
contract has been entered into under duress or there has been misrepresentation.

A contract is defined in terms of offer, agreement and consideration. A verbal contract is not just a
promise to do something. It is an essential element to the existence of a contract that both parties
intend to become legally bound. The parties must also have legal capacity and excluded categories
are persons of unsound mind, drunkards and minors. My contract books don't mention drug addicts,
but I suppose they would be classified as of unsound mind.

Consideration is the reason for the enforcement of a promise. The law obviously cannot uphold all
promises. You might think that a promise made by parties with the intent to become legally bound
would be sufficient for a contract, but it is the consideration that allows the court to know how to
assess the nature of the compensation. Consideration is vital. 'A valuable consideration, in the sense
of the law, may consist either in some right, interest, profit, or benefit accruing to the one party, or
some forbearance, detriment, loss or responsibility, given, suffered or undertaken by the other' (A
Casebook on Contractby Smith Thomas quoting Currie and Misa). Contract law in England, by the
way, is case law rather than statutory law which means that the law is determined by rulings in
particular cases by the courts rather than parliamentary statute. Case law can be quite funny
(amusing!). It has been ruled that consideration need not be adequate but must be sufficient (or real).
Smith notes that if I make a promise to you for supplying three chocolate wrappers which are quite
useless and you were going to throw them away anyway, this would be perfectly good consideration
because of the rule that the court will not enquire into the adequacy of the consideration so long as it
is real. Even though you were going to throw the chocolate wrappers away anyway, you have parted
with something you might have kept so this is considered 'detrimental' in accordance with the
definition of consideration according to the courts!

But although it is a general rule that the courts of England don't require that a contract is written to
make it valid, there are exceptions such as in the sale of land or where this is determined by statute.

Rachel Browne

Yes they are. Trouble is, they may be hard to prove. As Samuel Goldwyn (the great film producer)
once said, "Verbal contracts aren't worth the paper they are written on."

Ken Stern