A contract validly made can still collapse when events overtake it, leaving both parties released from obligations neither has breached. This chapter opens with the doctrine itself — what frustration does at the moment it strikes, what survives, and how it differs from common mistake — before setting out the elements and the radical difference test, including why hardship and lost profit are not enough. It then works through the recognised categories of frustrating event, from destruction and illegality to death, incapacity and frustration of purpose, with the special position of leases, and the bars that defeat a claim: self-induced frustration, force majeure clauses and foreseeability. It closes with the 1943 Act, covering the recovery of money paid, the court's discretion over expenses, awards for valuable benefits conferred, and the contracts excluded from the statutory scheme.
