In deciding whether an offer has been made, the courts adopt an objective approach. In other words, the question is not whether either of the parties actually intended to make an offer, but what a reasonable onlooker would have thought according to everything that was said and done.
In Storer v Manchester City Council (1974) CA Lord Denning explained: “In contracts you do not look into the actual intent in a man’s mind. You look at what he said and did. A contract is formed when there is, to all outward appearances, a contract. A man cannot get out of a contract by saying: ‘I did not intend to contract’, if by his words he has done so. His intention is to be found only in the outward expression which his [words and actions] convey. If they show a concluded contract that is enough.”
The offer must be communicated: An offer must be communicate