Consideration In English Contract Law

Contract law is vital as it provides legality for agreements made between parties. English contract law was developed as common law which relies a lot on precedent. To form a legal contract, there needs to be offer, acceptance, consideration, and intention to create legal relations, capacity to contract and the final contract (Open University, 2016).
Consideration in contract law, is an exchange of something of value between two or more parties in a contract. Each party in a contract must be a promisor and a promisee. A promisor creates an agreement that provides consideration to the promisee in exchange for the promisee’s agreement to provide a service. The value of consideration from the promisor must be of the same value as the performance of the contract terms by the promisee (Open University, 2016). There are two types of consideration, executed consideration and executory consideration. For example, if one party in a contract makes a promise in exchange

In this principle consideration need not be adequate just sufficient (Open University, 2016). Therefore courts do not rule on parties claiming to have entered a bad bargain. For example, in the case of Thomas v Thomas (1842) 2 QB 851, Mr Thomas wanted his wife Eleanor to have their house and its contents worth £100 after his death. However, he had expressed his desires orally and had not put a clause in his will. The executors of the house entered into an agreement with the wife whereby Eleanor will remain at the house but in return she has to maintain the house and pay £1 per year for the ground rent. After one of the executors of the house passed away, the other executor refused to complete the conveyance. The courts found the agreement entered between the executor and Mrs Thomas to pay £1 year in rent was sufficient in consideration (Thomas v Thomas,