A signed document can be enforceable while the work it requires is still unfinished. Another document can look complete yet fail because an essential element is missing. Real estate contract questions test several different dimensions at once. Keep formation, enforceability and performance on separate tracks instead of trying to describe the entire agreement with one word.
First ask whether an agreement was formed
Read the sequence before naming the contract. A buyer submits an offer at a stated price. The seller changes that price and signs the altered form. In the ordinary simplified scenario, the seller has made a counteroffer rather than accepted the original terms. The buyer must agree to the counteroffer for mutual assent to those changed terms. A signature is evidence of action, but it does not make different terms identical.
Look for competent parties, lawful purpose, consideration and agreement. A written form may also be needed under the applicable statute of frauds. Do not turn every missing detail into the same defect. An agreement for an illegal purpose presents a different issue from a lawful agreement that lacks the writing needed for enforcement. Questions often offer “void” and “unenforceable” together because candidates remember that something is wrong but have not identified what.
Consideration means something of legal value, not necessarily an earnest money deposit. If the parties exchange enforceable promises, the absence of a deposit does not automatically prove there is no consideration. A purchase contract may separately require a deposit by a deadline; failing to deliver that deposit can raise a performance issue. Read what the question says the deposit does before treating it as the ingredient that creates every contract.
Separate a defect from a future obligation
A void agreement has no legal effect as a contract under the relevant rule. A voidable agreement may be avoided by a party entitled to that protection. An unenforceable agreement cannot be enforced in court in the circumstances described. Those labels concern legal status. Executory and executed concern performance. A valid purchase agreement awaiting closing is typically executory because obligations remain to be performed.
Capacity problems illustrate why precision matters. Textbook questions often use a minor as an example of a party who may have the right to avoid a contract. That is different from saying the document never existed for anyone. The actual legal consequences depend on jurisdiction and the transaction. In an exam exercise that supplies the rule, apply that rule rather than adding your own assumptions about age, emancipation or ratification.
Do not let the word executed in a different setting confuse you. Someone may say a document was executed to mean it was signed. In a question explicitly contrasting executed with executory contracts, the intended distinction is usually performance. Use the context and the stem's request. A signed but unclosed sale can therefore be fully signed while still being executory in the performance sense.
Read the counteroffer in chronological order
Suppose an offer is delivered on Monday, a counteroffer is communicated Tuesday, and the buyer tries to accept the original proposal Wednesday. The common exam principle is that a counteroffer rejects the original offer and proposes new terms. Unless the question adds a special arrangement, the buyer cannot treat the old offer as continuously open after rejection. The point is the order of communication, not which party first used a standard form.
A request for information is not necessarily a counteroffer. “Would the seller consider a different closing date?” may be an inquiry; “I accept only if the closing date changes” is a conditional acceptance and raises a different analysis. Look for language that changes the bargain. Do not assume every negotiation question revokes a prior offer, and do not assume every message labeled acceptance is unconditional.
Contingencies add another layer. A financing contingency can create a valid agreement whose performance depends on a specified event. It does not mean no contract exists until the loan is funded. Read the deadline, required efforts and contractual consequences given in the scenario. A buyer's disappointment alone does not establish a termination right. The question needs a clause or rule supporting that conclusion.
Work an original contract question
Original practice situation: Competent parties sign a lawful written purchase agreement supported by exchanged promises. It provides for closing next month, and both parties still have obligations to perform. No party has breached. Which description is best? A: Void because the deed has not been delivered. B: Executory because performance remains. C: Unenforceable because the purchase price has not yet been paid. D: Executed because the parties have signed.
B is the best answer in a question about performance status. A confuses a future transfer with the validity of the present agreement. C assumes advance payment is required for every enforceable promise. D uses the signing sense of executed instead of the performance distinction established by the options. An explanation should identify the relevant dimension, not simply repeat the selected word.
For a second exercise, change the seller's response: the seller signs only after increasing the price and communicates the changed document to the buyer. There is now a counteroffer, not an unconditional acceptance of the buyer's proposal. If the buyer later accepts those new terms, formation can proceed. If the buyer refuses, matching assent is absent. Draw three short boxes for offer, response and communication; chronology often reveals a contract distractor faster than rereading the entire narrative. Avoid importing remedies such as specific performance until the stem actually asks about a breach and supplies facts that support one.
