Not all agreement is a legally enforceable contract, only certain time of agreement with co-hold to the rule of law of contract will become enforceable and such criteria have to be satisfied.
A contract to be legally binding or enforceable must include 4 essential elements as follow:
1) The relevant legal capacity to enter into a contract is the first element despite that there are other 3 existing elements; this is in relation to age and mental condition of the relevant contracting parties.
2) Agreement (Arising that an offer is made and accepted)
3) Consideration - an exchange of some benefit or something of value to the parties, for instance; there is monetary gains for products and services rendered.
4) The parties must have the intention to enter into a legal relationship which is the binding agreement.
The agreement will not stand when one or more components above are not in place.
Offer and Acceptance is generally used to decide whether a legally binding agreement exists between two parties in such traditional approach in contract law.
A contract exists when an offer is accepted (agreement to the terms in it) and is communicated to the offeror by the offeree.
In according to the case of Gunthing v Lynn (1831), the offeror offered to buy a horse “if it was lucky”. The court was held that the offer was unclear for it to stand.
Francis (as “offeror”) and Jim (as “offeree”) that Francis is willing to enter into an agreement to the terms that “he will buy the car on 20th January only if he has sufficient money” which is not a definite promise to be bound that the car will be purchased on 20th January and Jim (as “offeree”) could not accept the terms from Francis as offer was too vague.
While most offers are specially made to individuals, there also offers made to world at large or to a certain group of people.
For such cases, the contract will not be enforced as Jim did not accept the offer made by Francis.