offerer

An offerer, in contract law, is the party who makes an offer to enter into a contract. The more common term is offeror; offerer is a variant spelling found in some legal texts and general usage. The party who receives the offer is the offeree, who may accept, reject, or counter the offer. The creation of a contract generally requires a valid offer, acceptance, consideration, and mutual intent to be bound. An offer must be communicated to the offeree and must contain definite terms that, if accepted, would form a binding agreement. Acceptance typically must mirror the terms of the offer in most common-law systems.

An offer can be terminated by revocation before acceptance, rejection, counteroffer, lapse of time, or death or incapacity of the offeror, subject to exceptions such as options or firm offers where the offeror is bound for a stated period. After acceptance, there is usually no further power to revoke, and a contract is formed. In business practice, the offerer or offeror appears in contexts such as sales, negotiations, and auctions; the formality of the process and the required elements depend on jurisdiction and the type of contract.

See also: offeree, contract formation, acceptance, revocation, mirror image rule, firm offer, consideration.