Legal Consequences Of The Contract Lack Of Legal Written Form

Both the Contract Law and Civil Code have stipulated the principle of freedom of the contract form.The law sets out that only a few types of contracts must be in written form.However,the specific types of the written form and its constituent elements are not clear,resulting in confusion about the written form in judicial practice.The legal consequence is not clear also when the contract lacks of written form.Regrettably,the newly implemented Civil Code does not resolve these problems.This paper aim to clearly define the legal written form of contracts,clarify the content and form of contracts through the study of the domestic and foreign legislation and judicial cases.The paper also discuss the effect of legal written form on the validity of contracts in detail from different perspectives,such as the purpose of formal regulation,the types and the subjective state of the parties.At the same time,a detailed study was carried out on the rules of supplements and corrections by performance.This paper is divided into five parts:The first part expounds the significance of the study,finds its deficiency and puts forward questions by sorting out the domestic and foreign status.The second part combs the legislative evolution and normative purpose of the contract form.The contract form has undergone strict formal coercion in the early period.The requirements for the contract form were cumbersome and validity of contract is absolute.Later,the specific requirements for the contract form were gradually simplified.Until now,only some types of contracts must be in written form.The third part clearly defines the types of legal written form of contracts and discusses its constituent elements and application.The contract should first be judged whether it is in a written form that complies with legal requirements.Strictly speaking,only the contract is the written form of the contract or agreement.But from the perspective of normative interpretation and judicial practice,the written form should be interpret extensively.The words recorded on the paper documents is the written form,not just the form of contract.The legal written form of contracts shall contain the necessary terms of contracts and the parties’signatures,seals or fingerprints.Signatures,seals and fingerprints are the confirmation and expressions of the parties’ intentions,also are constitutive elements of legal written form of contracts.The application of the legal written form of contracts applies not only in the stage of entering into a contract but also in the stage of modifying and rescinding a contract of same type.The fourth part clarifies that the legal written form is the requirement of validity of contracts,but not all types of contracts should be deemed invalid without the legal written form.The validity of different types of contracts lacking legal written form should be discussed respectively according to the purpose of the formal regulation,the types and the subjective state of parties.The fifth part discusses the rules of supplements and corrections by performance when contracts lacks legal written form.Not all types of contracts are applicable to the the rules of supplements and corrections by performance.There is no room for the he rules of supplements and corrections by performance to apply when the contracts involves national interests and social public interests.