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Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017

Electronic transactions - Improving certainty in relation to electronic information and electronic communications - Default rules about dispatch and receipt of electronic communications

217: Time of communication of acceptance of offer

You could also call this:

“When an offer is accepted using email or text message”

When you accept an offer to make a contract using electronic communication, like email or text message, the law considers your acceptance to be communicated at the time the electronic message is received. This is important because it helps determine when a contract is formed.

The time when the electronic message is received is explained in another part of the law, called section 214. You can look at that section to understand exactly when a message is considered received.

However, this rule about when acceptance is communicated doesn’t always apply. There are two situations where it might not:

  1. If you and the other person making the contract agree to a different time for when acceptance is communicated.

  2. If another law says something different about when acceptance is communicated.

In these cases, the agreement you made or the other law would be followed instead of this rule.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM6844460.

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Part 4 Electronic transactions
Improving certainty in relation to electronic information and electronic communications: Default rules about dispatch and receipt of electronic communications

217Time of communication of acceptance of offer

  1. For the purpose of the formation of a contract, an acceptance by electronic communication of an offer is taken to be communicated to the offeror at the time determined by section 214 to be the time of receipt for that electronic communication.

  2. Subsection (1) does not apply if—

  3. the parties to the contract otherwise agree; or
    1. an enactment provides otherwise.

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