Contracts rarely stay still. Once a deal is signed, clients renegotiate — agreeing to pay a supplier more, accepting less to close out a debt, or changing terms with a handshake or an email. As a solicitor you will constantly be asked a deceptively simple question: is this change binding? Answering it means knowing when a variation needs writing, whether there is consideration to support it, and whether pressure or a broken promise might undo the bargain.
This lesson takes you through the whole picture, in order:
- Nature, Form and Formalities — what a variation is, the requirements for it to be enforceable, and how clauses requiring writing affect oral changes.
- Consideration for Variation — the pre-existing duty rule and how the practical benefit doctrine and mutual changes supply consideration.
- Part Payment of a Debt — why accepting less normally isn't binding, and the routes that make it so.
- Economic Duress — when pressure to agree a change lets the variation be set aside.
- Promissory Estoppel — the safety net when a variation fails for want of consideration, and its limits.
- Related Concepts and Distinctions — telling variation apart from waiver and novation.
By the end you'll be able to look at any proposed change and say, clearly, whether it sticks.