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| ====== The Ultimate Guide to Consideration: The Heartbeat of Every Contract ====== | |
| **LEGAL DISCLAIMER:** This article provides general, informational content for educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional legal advice from a qualified attorney. Always consult with a lawyer for guidance on your specific legal situation. | |
| ===== What is Consideration? A 30-Second Summary ===== | |
| Imagine you offer to pay a neighborhood kid $20 to mow your lawn. He agrees. You've both made promises, creating a mini-contract. What makes this agreement legally real and not just a casual favor? It's the "Consideration." Think of **consideration** as the "price" of a promise. It’s what each person gives—or gives up—to make the deal happen. You're giving up $20 (your "price"), and the kid is giving up his time and effort (his "price"). This two-way exchange is the engine that powers the contract, turning it from an empty promise into a legally enforceable agreement. Without this mutual give-and-get, a court will likely see the promise as a one-way gift, which generally can't be enforced if the giver changes their mind. Understanding consideration is understanding the fundamental difference between a real deal and a broken promise. | |
| * **Key Takeaways At-a-Glance:** | |
| * **The Core Principle:** For a contract to be valid, **consideration** requires a "bargained-for exchange" where each party gives something of legal value to the other. [[bargained-for_exchange]]. | |
| * **Your Real-World Impact:** **Consideration** is why a verbal promise from a friend to give you their old car is just a gift, but a written agreement to sell it to you for $500 is an enforceable [[contract]]. | |
| * **A Critical Warning:** Promises based on a past action ("past consideration") or something you were already obligated to do ("pre-existing duty") are generally not valid **consideration**, making the new promise unenforceable. [[pre-existing_duty_rule]]. | |
| ===== Part 1: The Legal Foundations of Consideration ===== | |
| ==== The Story of Consideration: A Historical Journey ==== | |
| The concept of consideration wasn't born in a modern courtroom; its roots run deep into the soil of English [[common_law]]. Hundreds of years ago, English courts needed a way to distinguish serious, enforceable promises from casual, social ones. They developed a test: was the promise part of a bargain? | |
| This idea was | |