Contract Acceptance and Offer

Q1. Understanding the concept of contract is the important thing in answering this question.” A contract may be defined as an agreement between two or more parties that is intended to be legally binding”. This answer will highlight the main points to see the differences between an offer and an invitation to treat.” An offer may be defined as a statement of willingness to contract on specified terms made with the intention that, if accepted there will arise a binding contract”. On the other side, invitation to treat invites the other people to make an offer which can be accepted or rejected by the other party. To illustrate them we have to look in certain areas.
First area is the display of goods where these are seen as an invitation to treat because shops are inviting people to make them an offer which can be accepted or rejected by the shopkeeper. Cases to supports this are Fisher v Bell and Pharmaceutical Society v Boots Chemists.
Another area in which the sales of goods are treated as an invitation to treat is advertisement as seen in Partridge v Crittenden. However we have an exception. Case to support this is Carlill v Carbolic where a reward was attached to the advert. This case is treated as an offer because it can be accepted without any future negotiations. Another example where the term of offer is not good valuated we can find in sales of land area. Case to support this is Harvey v Facey where the court decided that between them was not a contract just a confusion regarding to the answer to enquiries, so was not an offer and not an invitation to treat.
The last two areas where the court may presume that certain acts are invitation to treat is invitation to tender and auction sales. Cases which support the fact that invitation to tender is an invitation to treat are Spencer v Harding and Harvela Investments v Royal Trust. First case is illustrating that even you use the word offering in the context it doesn’t mean that is an offer.