simple contract

{{short description|Contract not made under seal}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

In contract law, a simple contract, also known as an informal contract, is a contract made orally, in writing, or both, rather than a contract made under seal.{{cite book |editor1-last=Garner |editor1-first=Bryan A. |title=Black's law dictionary |date=2009 |publisher=West |location=St. Paul, MN |isbn=978-0314199492 |page=370 |edition=9th}}David M. Walker, {{smallcaps|The Oxford Companion to Law}} 1144 (1980) (describing a "simple contract" as a "contract made not under seal, but orally or in writing").Jack Beatson, {{smallcaps|Anson’s Law of Contract}} 73 (2002) ("English law does not regard a bare promise or agreement as legally enforceable but recognises only two kinds of contract, the contract made by deed, and the simple contract."). Simple contracts require consideration to be valid,Jack Beatson, {{smallcaps|Anson’s Law of Contract}} 73 (2002). but simple contracts may be implied from the conduct of parties bound by the contract.

In his Commentaries on the Laws of England William Blackstone observed that in the seventeenth century, debtors used simple contracts as one of three accepted forms of unsecured debt instruments.George Lee Flint, Jr.& Marie Juliet Alfaro, Secured Transactions History: The Impact of Southern Staple Agriculture on The First Chattel Mortgage Acts in The Anglo-American World, 30 {{smallcaps|Ohio N.U.L. Rev.}} 537, 545 (2004) (citing 2 William Blackstone, {{smallcaps|Commentaries on the Laws of England}} 465 (Chicago, Callaghan & Co. 1879)). In 1828, the Parliament of the United Kingdom amended the statute of frauds so that oral acknowledgments or promises could not be used as evidence to prove the existence of a simple contract.Statute of Frauds Amendment Act 1828, 9 Geo 4 c 14 (1828). Today, some American jurisdictions have established that a security interest is perfected "when a creditor on a simple contract cannot acquire a judicial lien that is superior to the interest" of the secured party.Timothy R. Zinnecker, [http://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3313&context=mlr Purchase Money Security Interests in the Preference Zone: Questions Answered and Questions Raised by the 1994 Amendments to Bankruptcy Code § 547], 62 {{smallcaps|Mo. L. Rev.}} 47, 84 (1997) (internal quotations omitted).