Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017

Contracts legislation - Contractual privity

12: Deed or contract for benefit of person who is not party to deed or contract

You could also call this:

“Promises made in contracts can help people who didn't sign them”

This law is about promises made in legal documents that are meant to help someone who didn’t sign the document.

If you make a promise in a contract or deed that is meant to help another person, even if that person didn’t sign it, you still have to keep that promise. The person who is supposed to benefit from the promise can make you do what you promised.

This applies even if you name the person, describe them, or just say they belong to a certain group. It doesn’t matter if the person exists when you make the promise or not.

For example, if your parents sign a contract saying you’ll get a new bike, you can make them buy the bike even though you didn’t sign anything yourself.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM6844064.


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Part 2 Contracts legislation
Contractual privity

12Deed or contract for benefit of person who is not party to deed or contract

  1. This section applies to a promise contained in a deed or contract that confers, or purports to confer, a benefit on a person, designated by name, description, or reference to a class, who is not a party to the deed or contract.

  2. The promisor is under an obligation, enforceable by the beneficiary, to perform the promise.

  3. This section applies whether or not the person referred to in subsection (1) is in existence when the deed or contract is made.

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