Hi I’m Reed Bloodworth founding partner of Bloodworth Law.
Today I’m going to talk about what makes a verbal contract legitimate.
First what’s a verbal contract?
Well a verbal contract is just like a written contract it has the same basic elements.
There has to be an offer.
There has to be an acceptance.
There has to be something that you’re actually negotiating over of value.
And the parties must have the capacity to enter into that contract.
If you have those basic elements you can enter into a verbal contract.
There are certain things you may not be able to enter into a certain contract on.
Those things are governed by the statute of frauds and very common ones are real estate
transactions.
You’ve got to have it in writing.
Some other things might be agreements that are going to last longer than one year needed
in writing.
However if you and I entered into a verbal agreement for me to sell you these books for
$300 we can negotiate that and enter into that contract and that would be a binding
agreement.
Now these are the types of things that make a verbal agreement enforceable.
So there are circumstances which when people enter into verbal agreements disputes arise.
This is a lot of times because you don’t have the writing to go back and say exactly
what the agreement was.
An example might be a client verbally allows someone else to use their license for a particular
project.
They agree on it.
The client says all right I’m going to take 10 percent of the profit from this project
and you will be allowed to use my license.
They shake hands.
The project goes forward.
The person who’s using the license perhaps they pay the 10 percent out of one project.
However some time down the road the client discovers that person used my license for
many other projects for which I was unaware and as a result of our agreement I should
get paid on all these other agreements all these other projects.
That’s a situation where a dispute has arisen and you have a verbal agreement you might
want to bring a lawsuit to enforce that.
So in summary verbal contract are enforceable in certain situations and in certain situations
they’re not.
They have the same basic requirements as a written agreement.
You’ve got to have an offer.
You’ve got to have acceptance.
You’ve got to have something of value negotiated over.
You need capacity.
When I say capacity you need to be of age so over 18 and have your full mental faculties
about you.
At Bloodworth Law we represent both plaintiffs and defendants relating to disputes arising
from verbal agreements.
For plaintiffs we offer multiple payment options.
We have contingency options pay by the hour options and hybrid options.
For defendants we have pay by the hour fee options and flat fee options.
So if you have any questions of if you’re involved in a dispute pertaining to verbal
agreements verbal contracts give me a call.
Let’s talk about what happened to you.