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Asked · 2026-08-19
Written by the editorial desk as general legal information. It is not an answer about anybody's particular situation, including the asker's.
Many agreements can be made without writing. The difficulty is almost never whether an agreement exists — it is proving what its terms were when the two sides remember them differently.
Some categories of transaction do attract formal requirements, and land is the obvious example, where documentation and registration matter enormously. But for ordinary commercial arrangements the practical answer is that a verbal agreement can bind you and can also leave you with nothing you can demonstrate.
The instruments this touches, described in general terms. We do not reproduce statutory wording — read the official text before relying on any of it.
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