Rights and Remedies under english law when a contract is breached!?

There is a contract here. The postal rule (Adams v Lindsell 1818) says that acceptance is valid from the moment it is posted. It is immaterial if it does not arrive on time, or even at all, or if the post has been damaged or tampered.

The remedy available is substantial damages (damages to the actual true value of the loss suffered as a result of the breach of contract).

It should also be noted that the requested method of acceptance and payment may not be the only methods permissible. Provided acceptance or payments by other means is no less of a disadvantage than the method requested, that too will be acceptable. So if someone says "pay by cheque", it should be no skin off his nose if you pay by cash. If he says accept by post, if should not matter to him if you can accept by a method at least as fast and reliable provided that acceptance reaches him (though as already mentioned it is a long-standing rule in common law that acceptance by post is valid the moment it goes in the post, whether or not it ever reaches the offeror.)

In this case, the loss would be calculated by subtracting the price of this contract, £7,400, from the cost of person B going to the market place to buy a similar car. If he could only find a similar car for say, £8,000, his loss would be £600, as he was already willing to pay £7,400 anyway.

Also note, damages in contract are designed to put the person who is disadvantaged by the breach in the position he would have been in had the contract been performed. It is not designed to "punish" the party in breach. Therefore, suppose that A sold the car to X for £10,000, he is now £2,600 better off than if he had sold to B. But B is owed damages of £600 in the example above and that is all he can get. A could still keep the other £2,000 he made.

To be a contract there has to be offer, acceptance and consideration ie money . The seller would argue there is no contract as there is no consideration . Saying you posted the cheque doesn't help as the seller doesn't have the money and if you think about it from the sellers perspective what was he supposed to do. The answer is therefore b can do nothing . Had the seller received the cheque and cashed it , that would be different situation