Plain language law

New Zealand law explained for everyone

Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017

Contracts legislation - Frustrated contracts

60: Application

You could also call this:

“This part explains when you don't have to follow a contract anymore because it's too hard or impossible”

Sections 61 to 66 apply when you have a contract under New Zealand law that you can no longer carry out. This might be because it has become impossible to do what the contract says, or because something else has made the contract fail. When this happens, you and the other people involved in the contract don’t have to keep trying to do what the contract says.

There are some exceptions to this rule, which you can find in sections 67 to 69.

In this part of the law, when we talk about the ‘time of discharge’, we mean the moment when you and the other people in the contract were freed from having to keep doing what the contract said.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM6844136.

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"This part keeps important contract rules the same as before"

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Part 2 Contracts legislation
Frustrated contracts

60Application

  1. Sections 61 to 66 apply if—

  2. a contract governed by New Zealand law has become impossible to perform or has been otherwise frustrated; and
    1. the parties to the contract have for that reason been discharged from the further performance of the contract.

      1. Subsection (1) and sections 61 to 66 are subject to sections 67 to 69.

      2. In this subpart, time of discharge means the time at which the parties to the contract were discharged as referred to in subsection (1).

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