Law
Silence as a yes
I write to you: 'I will buy your bike for £100. If I hear nothing, I will take it as a yes.' You say nothing. Do we have a contract?
- Hint 1How is an offer usually accepted?
- Hint 2Who gets to decide what counts as acceptance, and is it fair to impose silence on someone?
- A contract needs an offer and an acceptance, normally communicated to the person who made the offer.
- English law generally does not treat silence as acceptance: the person making the offer cannot impose it (Felthouse v Bindley, 1862).
- The rule protects people from being bound by doing nothing.
- But silence may count where the parties have agreed it will, or where a course of dealing shows that silence means yes.
- So on these facts, probably no contract.
Where it lands: Probably not: silence is not generally acceptance, though past dealings or prior agreement can change that.
The trap: Saying 'yes, because I said so in the letter': the offeror cannot impose silence as acceptance.
What a tutor might ask next: What if you had already started repainting the bike for me?
Now do one out loud. In the interview you think aloud with a tutor. Try a Law problem with hints, follow-ups and Mia's feedback on how you think.