Question

2. Offer and Acceptance

On November 1, Amy sent a letter to Peter with whom she had been negotiating a contract to sell all of her law textbooks for HK$10,000. The letter said that unless Peter reply by return mail by November 7, the offer will lapse. Unfortunately, the letter contained an error in the address and was not delivered to Peter until November 6 at 9 a.m. Peter replied at once accepting the offer and posted a letter on November 6 at 12 noon.

On November 4, Candy, knew about the negotiation, whatsapp-ed Amy that her interest to buy her textbooks for HK$8,000. Amy having heard nothing from Peter, telephoned Candy on November 5 and offered the purchase price at HK$9,000. Candy accepted.

Amy sent an email to Peter’s wife (Linda) on November 6 telling her that the offer of November 1 was withdrawn. This email was received on Linda’s computer at 11:00 a.m. on November 6, but was not opened and read by Linda until the next day.

Discuss the contractual rights of Amy, Peter and Candy

Answer 1

The contractual right of Person A:

Person A send the letter on wrong address which means that letter is not valid for creating a contract because for a valid contract the letter should be send to correct person having correct address. Therefore, there is no legal relation between Person A and Person P.

On the other hand, Person C contacted to Person A and Person A agrees to sell the books. This is a valid contract between both the parties. Here, both the parties are liable to fulfil the contract.

The contractual right of Person P:

Person P has no contractual relation with Person A. thus there is no legal right.

The contractual right of Person P:

Person C offers a contract to Person A and Person A also agrees on that. Therefore, both the parties are legally bind to fulfil the contract as per the decided terms.