A contract is an agreement the law will enforce. In Uganda the Contracts Act 2010 restates the common-law sequence: offer, acceptance, consideration, and intention to create legal relations. Formation is where most problem questions live. Get the sequence wrong and the rest of the script is decoration.
Law of Contract · Lecture notes
Offer, Acceptance, and When a Contract is Born
The formation sequence that still decides most first-year contract scripts: offer versus invitation to treat, communication of acceptance, and the postal rule’s narrow life.
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An offer is a definite promise to be bound on specified terms. An invitation to treat is an invitation to make offers. Shop displays and advertisements are usually invitations to treat. That is why a price tag does not, by itself, force a sale, and why a newspaper advert for a reward can still be an offer if it is clear, unilateral, and addressed to the world.
Acceptance must be communicated
Silence is not acceptance. The general rule is that acceptance takes effect when it is communicated to the offeror (Entores v Miles Far East). Instantaneous methods — telephone, telex, and by analogy email and WhatsApp — follow that rule. The postal rule is the exception, not the starting point.
The postal rule, used sparingly
Adams v Lindsell holds that an acceptance by post is effective when properly posted, even if it never arrives — but only where post was a contemplated method, the letter was properly addressed, and the offeror has not required actual communication. If the offer says ‘notice in writing to reach me’, the postal rule is displaced. Always ask: was post contemplated, and did the offeror reserve the right to hear back?