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Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017

Contracts legislation - Stipulations not of essence of contracts

118: Stipulations not of essence of contracts

You could also call this:

“Courts can be flexible about time limits in contracts”

This law is about how courts interpret certain parts of contracts, especially those that talk about time or other conditions. Before September 13, 1882, courts of equity (which were special courts that focused on fairness) had their own way of looking at these conditions. Now, all courts must interpret these parts of contracts the same way that courts of equity did before that date. This means that even if a contract says something must happen by a certain time, the courts might not treat that time limit as absolutely essential to the contract. They’ll look at it the same way that courts of equity used to, which might be more flexible.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM7067804.

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Part 2 Contracts legislation
Stipulations not of essence of contracts

118Stipulations not of essence of contracts

  1. Stipulations in contracts as to time or otherwise that would not, before the relevant date, have been deemed to be or to have become the essence of such contracts in a court of equity must receive in all courts the same construction and effect as they would have received in equity before that date.

  2. In subsection (1), relevant date means 13 September 1882 (the date on which the Law Amendment Act 1882 came into force).

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