To Sign Or Not To Sign

Contract law can be as easy as 1-2-3. But there could be other steps: 4-5-6, or 1.5, 2.3, 3.7 - huh? Don't be confused, most people are. Courts interpret contracts by placing themselves in the shoes of the parties and analyzing what the parties' intent was originally. 

Scenario #1: suppose your neighbor says, "I'll pay you $100 as soon as you finish putting up my holiday lighting". You say nothing, or sign nothing. You simply start and get about halfway and stop because you're bored, tired, or got distracted. Guess what? Your neighbor owes you not one penny because you agreed to the exact contract terms offered. How did you do this? By just commencing the actual work. Not fair you say? How about this. Scenario #2:  your neighbor offers the same contract, but you say, "I'll need $50 up front and $50 at completion of the work". Once you get the fifty bucks from your neighbor you start. You get halfway and stop. Your neighbor owes you nothing else and you got $50 in advance. Did you need to have written a contract for this? No. Was it a verbal contract? Sure, but technically whether oral or written, you both agreed on something for something, and acted with the intent to follow through. In scenario #2 when you stopped the neighbor was not hurt. What is the rule? When your action or your neighbor's action is not detrimental to the other party, then no issues come up.

The rules exist to help you get your money if you finished the job (now your neighbor owes you), or protect the neighbor if you didn't finish the job (owes you nothing, or at minimum only paid for what work was actually done), or, and here is the exception, you told the neighbor you desperately needed the final half of the money before actually finishing and it was given to you. Then you stopped. Now you owe your neighbor the work of finishing and the neighbor is hurt financially if you don't. But you still don't want to do it? Well, the neighbor will take you to small claims court and win. The rules on contracts do not focus on your signature or the failure to sign, nor about whether it is considered oral. It is about what bargain you both freely made with each other and the "consideration" of the bargain (the "something" for "something").