The Rules on Acceptance in the Offer

        The offer must be mirrored by acceptance; most of the times in situations, it will look as though the acceptance of the offer has communicated effectively to the offeror by an offeree. However, if this acceptance changes the attached conditions as to the offer’s terms, then questions arise that whether it is considered unequivocal or not. This issue was raised in a court in Hyde v Wrench [1840] 3 Beav 334.  Following are the facts of the case:

        An offer was made by an offeror to sell land at £1000, and the response of offeree was that he accepted the offer at £950; the offeror subsequently rejected the price that offeree quoted.  The offerer attempted to make offeree accept the £1000 original offer.

         The court found that the offeree was not able to accept the £1000 original offer.  The reason for this was the fact that the previous offer’s “acceptance” at £950 had changed the parties’ relationship fundamentally. Because when conditions of the offer were changed by the original offeree by changing the pricing terms of condition, a counter-offer was created in fact. Counter-offers are the offers that revoke the previous offers and most of the times the revoked offer is incapable of being accepted.

        Information Request: Counter-offers and simple requests for information, most of the times, are confused with each other because both of these involve existing offers’ terms in the same way. In the Stevenson Jaques & Co. v McLean (1880) 5 QBD 346 case, the distinction between counter-offers and simple requests for information was made apparent;

        An inquiry is made by the offeree in this instance that either the offeror would allow a specific time or method of delivery, of the products described in an offer. The Court found it that asking a question in order to make the offer’s existing terms clear was, in fact, a simple request for information and not a counter-offer.

        Cross-offers: there are instances (incredibly rare, however) where there are two parties, and complimentary offers are sent by both parties at the same time to one another.  The question arises that if this occurs, then which of the contracts is acceptable. This question was answered in Tinn v Hoffman (1873) 29 LT 271 case that such instances are insufficient to amount to acceptance of the any of the offers, i.e. it is must communicate offers and acceptance separately.