Understanding the Electronic Signature Legality for Independent Contractor Agreement in Australia

How to eSign a document: electronic signature legality for Independent Contractor Agreement in Australia

[Music] a contract is a legally binding agreement between two or more parties it is not enough to state that a contract is an agreement it is important to point out that a contract is illegally binding agreement this is because all contracts are agreements but not all Agreements are contracts it is illegally binding aspect of an agreement which makes it a contract in English law so what do I mean by legally binding I mean that if an agreement is legally binding if one party fails to do what they promise to do Under the agreement the other party has the right to ask the court to enforce that promise whereas with a non-legally binding agreement just an ordinary agreement because it is not a contract in English law if one party fails to do what they promise to do we don't have a right to ask the court to enforce that agreement let's have a look at two examples of agreements one will be a non-legally binding agreement and one will be illegally binding agreement or contract in English law and hopefully this will help us to understand exactly what the difference is between the two so in scenario a we meet Laura and Robert had been on well for quite some time and as Laura is such a wonderful friend she decided that she would make an offer to Robert and the author said oh Robert I will clean your flat for four weeks I will come to clean your flat every Friday for the next four weeks Robert agreed he said oh thank you Laura thank you so much you're very kind Laura started going to clean his flat immediately and she went for three weeks on the third week she began to feel a bit frustrated with Robert because Robert was quite messy and Laura decided she wouldn't go back to clean his flat on the following week so the fourth week she didn't go back to clean his flat now remember these two had an agreement but now that Laura is not cleaning Robert's flat anymore does Robert have a right to go to the court to ask the court to get Laura to clean his flat was there agreement legally binding no this is a non-legally binding agreement there are certain elements missing from this agreement which make it a non-legally binding agreement it is not a legally binding agreement or contract in English law let's turn to scenario B in scenario B we meet Jane and Mark Jane and Mark had recently got married and they found themselves a nice little home with a big problem the big problem was their kitchen their kitchen was unusable they needed a brand new one and they only had 3 000 pounds to get this work done they searched and searched and searched most of the people they found said they would do the work for between five thousand and ten thousand pounds eventually they found someone called Keith and Keith ran a company called Keith's kitchens Keith said if you would pay me three thousand pounds in advance I will get this kitchen done for you he said normally I would charge about five thousand to six thousand pounds to get this type of work done but you're a newlywed couple and I totally understand so I will just charge you three thousand pounds but you need to pay me in advance Jaden Mark paid Keith three thousand pounds to get the work done Keith turned up and worked for 10 days straight but on the 11th day he did not turn up he called Jane and Mark and he told them that his back was in a state and that he would need to be off from work for a week they waited for seven days and after seven days Keith did not turn up to work again so they decided to call him and Keith said I'm really sorry but I'm in hospital and I'm not going to be able to work for the next six months but I do have someone who can come and do the work for you and his name is Rory he'll be with you tomorrow and Rory did turn up Rory turned up the following day and he worked the whole day but he complained the whole day he said the work was far more than Keith had told him and he wasn't sure if he was going to come back after that and Rory didn't turn up after that after three days of waiting and not seeing Rory nor Keith nor Herring from Keith Jane and Mark decided to call Keith but when they called Keith they realized his phone had been disconnected they were unable to get through to Keith if Jane and Mark were to turn to the law to get their money back or to get the job done would they be able to do so do they have a legally binding agreement with Keith's kitchens yes they do there are particular elements present in the agreement between Jane and Mark and Keith's kitchens which make it illegally binding agreement or Contracting English law those elements are illegally binding offer acceptance consideration and intention to create legal relations later on in the course we will explore exactly what these elements are and how we identify them in English law