The goods that are to be included in the contract for sale are one of the most important things to spell out. In section 2(7) of the Act, “Goods” means all kinds of things that can be moved. Part 2(7) of the Act says the following:
“Every kind of moveable property that isn’t money or actionable claims will be considered goods. This includes stock and shares, growing crops, grass, and things that are attached to or part of the land that are agreed to be cut off before sale or under the terms of the sale contract.”
You can see that the Act also says that stocks and shares are things. When we talk about “actionable claims,” we mean those that can be used in court or through a lawsuit. This means that those claims could be used to start an action to get the money back, like a sale, a lawsuit, a refund, or something else.
When things are in a state where they can be delivered, the buyer is legally required to take delivery of them. The following categories of goods can help you understand them better:
- Existing goods
Existing commodities, as defined in the contract of sale, are those that are in a state of presence (in existence) at the moment the contract is executed. Section 6 of the Act defines existing commodities as those that the seller possesses lawfully or is the rightful owner of at the time the contract of sale is formulated. Additional categories of existing goods include the following:
- A) Specific Goods
Section 2(14) of the Act defines these as the products that are “identified and agreed upon” at the time of the formation of the sales contract. For instance, suppose you wish to sell an online mobile phone. You insert an advertisement that includes its own image and details. When a purchaser consents to the transaction, a legally binding contract is established. As such, the mobile device is a specific commodity.
- B) Ascertained Goods:
This is a category whose definition is left to judicial discretion and not the law. This terminology is applied to particular products that have been chosen from a larger assortment of products. Consider a scenario in which you possess 500 pears. You opt to sell 200 fruits from a total of 500. In order to market these 200 apples for sale, they must be separated from the broader set of 500. Consequently, you designate 200 apples from a greater quantity of unspecified apples. Presently, the 200 apples in question have been designated as the ascertained commodities.
- C) Uncertained goods (Unidentified)
The following items have been designated as “unidentified goods”; their selection has been delegated to a larger group. For instance, suppose you have 500 fruits and you decide to sell 200 of them without specifying which ones. The vendor shall be free to select two hundred apples at random from the assortment. Therefore, these items remain undetermined.
- Future goods
Future commodities are those that are manufactured, produced, or acquired by the seller at the time the sales contract is executed, as defined in section 2(6) of the Act. Constantly, the contract for the sale of future products will remain an agreement to sell and never include the actual sale.
As an illustration, consider an apple orchard stocked with fruits. One thousand apples are to be sold to a consumer once they have reached maturity. Although this sale must take place in the future, the products and the agreement have already been identified. These items are referred to as future products.
- Contingent goods
In reality, contingent goods are a subtype of future commodities in which the physical transaction is scheduled to occur at a later time. These items are the subject of a sale agreement that contains a contingency clause. As an illustration, the apples may be considered a contingent product if they are sold from the orchard prior to the trees bearing fruit. This transaction is contingent on the applestrewn fruiting condition, an event that is not guaranteed.
