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Consideration

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Consideration is considered to be the third element of contract law that needs to exist to form a contract. There is an exchange of promises between two parties a promisor and a promisee where each party either have a benefit or suffer a detriment, which is referred to be a consideration. Sir Frederick Pollock defined consideration as "An act or forebearance of one party, or the promise thereof, is the price for which the promise of the other is bought, and the promise thus given for value is enforceable" authorized by Lord Dunedin in Dunlop v Selfridge Ltd [1915] AC 847. In the sense of law, consideration should value something (Thomas v Thomas) (1842)and doesn’t include any promises of affection or feelings or other moral/gratuitous promises. Consideration can also be any type of advantage to the promisor while it often is an amount of money paid. Even though, there is an advantage or a disadvantage to either a promisor or the promisee, there are no exact amount or value. Until and unless there are some, courts aren’t bothered about the adequacy of the consideration as both parties are allowed to bargain their liberty of contract that’s good for themselves with no obstacles from courts. (Harvey, 2013).

Consideration is a significant part of a lawfully enforceable contract, as the absence of it would restrict the law from enforcing the promises made by the promisor during an agreement made or contract formed. However, the existence of consideration doesn’t itself solve all the cases. There are certain laws of consideration to be known, followed and implemented.

Past consideration not considered
Under contract law, past consideration is referred to as insufficient or invalid consideration. The original contract is taken as a major basis upon which the agreement was made and hence any other promises made after that point doesn’t cover the legal consideration.

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