AGREEMENT, a mutual bargain, con tract or covenant. Agreements may be either express or implied. Express agreements are those openly stated and avowed by the parties at the time of their making. Implied agree ments are those which the law supposes the parties to have made although the terms were not openly expressed. There must be an agree ment by the parties, a definite offer made by one party and accepted by the other, and they must assent to the same thing in the same sense. The assent must be mutual and obliga tory and there must be a request on one side and an assent on the other. The assent must be broad enough to cover the whole proposition. It must be exactly equal to its extent and pro vision, and it must not qualify them by any new matter, and even a slight qualification destroys the assent. The agreement must be based upon a sufficient consideration (q.v.), and as against third persons this consideration must be good or valuable. It need not be ade quate provided it has some real value. If the
consideration is impossible, or illegal either in whole or in part, the agreement will be void. The agreement may be to do anything permitted by the law, as to sell and buy real estate or per sonal property. The evidence of the sale of real estate, however, must be by deed, and sealed. In many instances agreements In re gard to personal property must be reduced to writing.
A hire-purchase agreement is a contract, usually in writing, by which one agrees to hire or purchase goods on instalments, the title to the same remaining in the lender or vendor until the last instalment has been paid, and is case of default in any payment or breach of nay part of the contract by the hirer or vendee, the prior payments are forfeited to the lender or vendor. It is virtually, a conditional sale, and has become of increasing importance dur ing recent years. See Corm/Am; SALE.