Consideration is the idea that a promise is only enforceable if something is given in return for it — it is the price each party pays for the other's promise. As a solicitor, you will constantly need to know whether an agreement actually binds your client: whether a renegotiated deal sticks, whether a creditor who accepted less can still sue for the rest, or whether someone outside the bargain can enforce it. Getting this right is the difference between a contract and a mere gesture of goodwill.
This lesson builds the doctrine up step by step:
- Nature and Role of Consideration — what consideration is and why it marks out a binding contract from a bare promise.
- Sufficiency and Adequacy — why value must be real but need not be fair, and why illusory promises fail.
- Consideration Must Move from the Promisee — who can actually enforce a promise, and how this links to privity.
- Executory, Executed and Past Consideration — the timing of consideration and why past acts usually don't count.
- Existing Duties and Forbearance to Sue — when doing what you already owe can (and can't) support a fresh promise.
- Part Payment of a Debt — the rule that less is not enough, and its exceptions.
- Promissory Estoppel — how equity protects a relied-on promise without consideration.
- Suspensory and Extinctive Effect — whether estoppel pauses rights or destroys them.