Consideration is often a mere fiction devised to make a promise enforceable

“Consideration is often a mere fiction devised to make a promise enforceable and, as such, serves little purpose. It would be advantageous to abolish consideration and leave the more satisfactory requirement of intention to create legal relations as the test of agreement enforceability.” Discuss.

Your assignment should start off by introducing the doctrine of Consideration and the intention to create legal relations: what are they, what do they mean, what purpose do they serve, how does the Court identify them, what test to they use to identify them?

The body of your assignment should engage with the statement that it would be better to abolish consideration and just use the intention to create legal relations as a test of enforceability. Do you agree with this? Why? Are there distinct advantages to the test of intention? Does it make contractual dealings less ambiguous? Or does the doctrine of Consideration serve a useful purpose? Consider these various arguments, and advance your position with reference to cases that illustrate your point.

You should conclude by summarising the arguments you advanced in your essay, and weighing up the two tests against each other: should one be favoured over the other, or do the two tests complement each other and provide optimal clarity when taken together.