Issue

Is there any intention of creating a legally binding contract relation between Josh and his father? no. Josh and his father had no intention of creating a legal association. With the intention of creating no legal relation the involved parties cannot sue each other. In this case, it means that Josh does not have the capability of suing his father and his father also cannot sue him at any specific time. Did Josh’s father create any terms to a contract when he gave his son money in exchange for collecting the grass? In addition, were the considered terms clear enough to be a contract and was a sufficient consideration for exchange between the involved parties, for Josh to be entitled to constantly receive the $ 200 weekly allowance. These are some of the important issues that will be considered in this paper.

Analysis

 A contract can be described as an arrangement between two or more than two parties for its to be enforceable and binding. Contracts are developed from a number of subsections including agreement (an offer and the acceptance), the intention of creating a legal relationship and considerations (Anson, et al., 2010). An agreement is a fundamental element of a contract, which is very clear when an offer and the acceptance has been made. It is easy for such an offer to be modified under agreed specification by the involved parties for one or more individuals in the party.

Acceptance on the other hand has to be made in accordance with the terms stipulated in the offer. In addition, the acceptance has to be communicated by the offeror either through writing, silence or by conduct. Silence is often considered as an acceptance in certain circumstances (Lipshaw, 2015). The acceptance might not be a cross offer by it must be communicated to the offeror. It is important to note that an acceptance can be in form of actions, where the actions of performing a certain activity is considered acceptance (Grosskopf, & Roth, 2009).

Intentions of creating Legal Association

The intention of creating a legal relation is important and a necessary element when determining whether a contract can be considered as binding. The guidelines that relate to this include: Family or other domestic associations are assumptions based on the fact that the involved parties do not have the intentions of making legal relations. Business contracts or any other commercial relations are assumptions that depict the intention of creating a legal relation.

Consideration.

Consideration is essential in order to validate any contract. The Process involves conducting simples’ acts, the exchange from the promise to the promisers. Therefore, considerations must be transferred from the promises that were made earlier. In addition to that, it must contain value that is considered by the involved parties to the contract. Therefore, it is important to consider sufficient value for a consideration. If not, it might be considered insufficient. That being said, Josh’s father offered him a $200 allowance every week for the work that he does on the grass on the family property. This shows that there was clear verbal communication concerning the offer, which was directly made to Josh, thus making a strong base for the contract. The offer was clear and simple for the reason that it openly highlighted the father as the offeror and Josh as the promisee. Nevertheless, it didn’t provide explicit period of the contract. Such period ought to have been dictated by reasonable time based on the agreement. It is important to note that the key terms are incorporated in the offer.

Acceptance

After a number of weeks of mowing the grass, Josh’s father indicated that he is not capable of paying him the agreed weekly salary. However, Josh had communicated acceptance through his conduct. Notably, an acceptance can be in the form of actions and it clearly indicates that Josh had been mowing the grass for approximately four weeks, thus making it a valid for acceptance towards the offer, provided that the two terms of agreement were coinciding (Monaghan, & Monaghan, 2013).

The combination of the offer through compensation and acceptance through Josh’s conduct is a clear highlight that there was an agreement between Josh and his father. Moreover, were there any intentions from the parties to create a legal relation? As indicated earlier family or any other domestic relations are just assumptions that have bases in which the involved parties do not intend of making legal relations (Nolan, 2010).

 Josh and his father are relatives and thus the intention of making a legal relation between the parties is challenging to ascertain. The two parties reached an agreement through the actions of the father to create an offer and the Josh’s conduct to meet the agreed terms and conditions of the offer (Stone, 2012). Nevertheless, an actionable agreement is still not valid as the intentions of creating legal relations doesn’t coincide with the key assumptions of the agreement. These presumptions are derived from particular experiences in life and human nature, which shows relatively relying on family ties of mutual trust and love in agreement. Therefore, the intentions of creating legal relations are not valid (Hart, 2009).

It is important to note that, for any considerations to be valid, the offeror has to give an offer to the promisee. In this case, the offer is a $200 weekly salary to Josh that was made through verbal agreement. The case depicts Josh as poor university student who has been provided with an opportunity by his father through a verbal consensus. Therefore, the considerations were valid as the offeror provides income while the promisee conducts the tasks as agreed in their terms (Yadav, 2014).

Conclusion

That being said, it is clear that Josh had entered into a contract with his father, with specifications of the offer and acceptance through considerations in the promise of a weekly allowance for cutting grass. Nevertheless, intention of creating legal relations for matters concerning relatives is not intended in respect to the assumptions. As a result, the agreement fails to be enforceable. Furthermore, the period is unapparent which is inly determined by the passage of period. For any business, the passage period is usually 3 months. However, family agreements have minimal passage period. Therefore, the agreement between Josh and his father shows the key aspects of an basic elements of  agreement and considerations though it fails to depict any intent to create a legal relation and an explicit length of the agreement.

References

Anson, W. R., Beatson, J., Burrows, A. S., & Cartwright, J. (2010). Anson’s law of contract. Oxford University Press.

Grosskopf, B., & Roth, A. E. (2009). If you are offered the Right of First Refusal, should you accept? An investigation of contract design. Games and Economic Behavior, 65(1), 176-204.

Hart, D. K. (2009). Contract Formation and the Entrenchment of Power. Loy. U. Chi. LJ, 41, 175.

Lipshaw, J. (2015). Formalism, Speech Acts, and the Realities of Contract Formation. Speaking of Language and Law: Conversations on the Work of Peter Tiersma, 89-92.

Monaghan, N., & Monaghan, C. (2013). Beginning Contract Law. Routledge

Nolan, D. (2010). Offer and Acceptance in the Electronic Age. Contract Formation and Parties (OUP 2010), 61-87.

Stone, R. (2012). Forming contracts without offer and acceptance, Lord Denning and the harmonisation of English contract law. Web Journal of Current Legal Issues, 2012(4), n-a.

Yadav, A. (2014). Changing concept contract recent problems and issues.