Question 3 (i)
Issue:
Tan Chin Yang is a minor and now he wants to enter into a contract to sell the land below the market price to the developer.
Legal principles: There are eight key elements must be fulfil by both parties before entering the contract which are offer, acceptance of the offer, intention to create legal relations, consideration, certainty, capacity, consent and legality. If one of the elements cannot be fulfil, the contract is considered as void. Section 2 (g) of the Contract Act 1950 states a void contract is an agreement not enforceable by law. Section 10 (1) of the Contract Act 1950 states all agreements are contract if the contract is made by the free consent of both parties is competent to the contract. If free consent is not obtained, the contract can consider as a void or voidable contract. Voidable contract is a contract that the parties involved can choose to continue or revoke the contract. Next, capacity is one of the element to ensure the contract is valid. Therefore, it is important to identify the parties that entering into the contract whether they have the legal capacity to enter. Under Section 11 of the Contract Act 1950, every person is competent to contract when the person has a sound mind, within or above the age of majority and did not
When the plaintiff sued for payment, the defendant was lack of capacity. The plaintiff argued that the waist coats were in the category of necessaries. But the father of defendant was able to bring evidence that his son, a minor, was already adequately stocked with the waist coats, thus the clothes were no longer a necessity. At the end the court held, as the evidence proven the waist coats is not necessary to the minor. As a result, the plaintiff was unable to enforce the contract. In other words, it is not a valid