OMG! Your Text Messages Could Be a Contract

Be careful what you text because you may end up a party to contract. A court in Massachusetts held that the texts between two real estate sales agents resulted in a binding contract. In most states, contracts for the sale of real estate have to be in writing. This is called the Statute of Frauds. The writing has to be signed by both parties and contain sufficiently complete terms and an intention to be bound by those terms. The court held that the e-mails and texts between the agents filled all of the requirements of a binding written contract.

WHY YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS. Not all contracts come under the strict requirements of the Statute of Frauds. Our technology driven society facilitates an ease of communications that the creators of the Statute of Frauds never envisioned. So a string of e-mails and text messages can have unintended consequences of creating a contract. Then the parties could end up in litigation over the formation and enforceability of a contract.