Statute of Frauds

No action shall be brought whereby to charge any executor or administrator upon any special promise, to answer damages out of his own estate; or whereby to charge the defendant upon any special promise to answer for the debt, default, or miscarriages of another person; or to charge any person upon any agreement made upon consideration of marriage; or upon any contract or sale of lands, tenements or hereditaments, or any interest in or concerning them; or upon any agreement that is not to be performed within the space of one year from the making thereof; unless the agreement upon which such action shall be brought, or some memorandum or note thereof, shall be in writing, and signed by the party to be charged therewith, or some other person thereunto by him lawfully authorized.

No contract for the sale of any goods, wares and merchandises, for the price of ten pounds sterling or upwards, shall be allowed to be good, except the buyer shall accept part of the goods so sold, and actually receive the same, or give something in earnest to bind the bargain, or in part of payment, or that some note or memorandum in writing of the said bargain be made and signed by the parties to be charged by such contract, or their agents thereunto lawfully authorized.

Editorial note. The statute was drafted in the Restoration Parliament to check the abuses of oral evidence in an era in which parties to civil actions were disqualified as witnesses. Its authors—Sir Matthew Hale, Sir Leoline Jenkins, and Lord Nottingham are traditionally credited—sought to require documentary evidence for the great transactions of private life.

Editorial note. The statute's declared purpose is the prevention of fraud and perjury by requiring reliable written evidence of the most consequential legal transactions.

Editorial note. Enumerated interests in land, enumerated contracts, wills of land, and (originally) sales of goods above a monetary threshold are enforceable only if evidenced by writing signed by the party to be charged (with exceptions for part performance, receipt of earnest, and delivery and acceptance of goods).

Editorial note. The statute reaches (i) leases and interests in land (§§ 1–3), (ii) express trusts of land (§ 7), (iii) five categories of contract (§ 4), (iv) sale of goods over ten pounds (§ 17), and (v) wills of land and their revocation (§§ 5–6). It does not reach implied, resulting, or constructive trusts (§ 8), executed conveyances, or transactions outside the enumerated categories.

Editorial note. The statute presupposes and refines the Statute of Wills (1540) and complements the Statute of Uses (1536) and Statute of Enrolments (1536). It is the direct ancestor of American state statutes of frauds and of Uniform Commercial Code § 2-201 (sale of goods).

Editorial note. Every American jurisdiction imposes writing requirements upon the categories enumerated in section 4—guaranties, contracts for the sale of land, and contracts not to be performed within one year—as well as upon sales of goods above a threshold. The historic exceptions (part performance, promissory estoppel, main-purpose rule) descend from equitable and common-law refinements of the English rule.

Editorial note. The statute was construed narrowly in some respects (e.g., the one-year clause) and expansively in others (e.g., interests in land). English amendments culminated in the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989, which superseded § 4's land-contracts branch by requiring the contract itself, not merely a memorandum, to be in writing.

Editorial note. First, the statute prescribes an evidentiary condition of enforceability rather than a rule of substantive validity. Second, part performance and specific-performance doctrine may take an oral contract for the sale of land outside the statute in equity. Third, the exception for implied, resulting, and constructive trusts (§ 8) preserves equitable remedies that the writing rule would otherwise defeat.

Editorial note. Wain v. Warlters, 5 East 10 (K.B. 1804) (memorandum must express consideration); Boone v. Coe, 153 Ky. 233, 154 S.W. 900 (1913) (contracts not to be performed within a year); Monarco v. Lo Greco, 35 Cal. 2d 621, 220 P.2d 737 (1950) (estoppel to plead the statute); and Restatement (Second) of Contracts §§ 110, 129 (part performance and reliance) collect the standard modern glosses.

Editorial note. Modern American courts apply the statute of frauds in three principal categories—land contracts, suretyship, and the one-year clause—while UCC § 2-201 governs sales of goods. The statute continues to shape drafting practice, remedy selection, and the resolution of enforceability disputes.

Editorial note. See Statute of Wills, 32 Hen. 8, c. 1 (1540); Statute of Uses, 27 Hen. 8, c. 10 (1536); U.C.C. § 2-201; Restatement (Second) of Contracts §§ 110–150.

Editorial note. Every modern American analysis of the enforceability of a guaranty, of an oral land contract, of a one-year contract, or of an oral trust of land begins with the categories drawn in 1677.