In legalese, what does "material" mean?

[ragged]

Long story short, I am trying to break a contract by claiming a unilateral mistake on my part; the other party knew something I didn't when the contract was made, and I would not have agreed to the contract had I not been misinformed.

The Contract Legal Textbooks say that claiming a contract should be void due to a unilateral mistake is only possible when the mistake is "material". What does that mean, "material"?, can anyone help?

Ta!!

Means relevant.

Sorry to be a bit clearer in these circumstances a material mistake is one on which you relied on to make your decision on whether to proceed with the contract as opposed to a mistake which wouldn't have effected your decision either way. HTH.

it doesn't mean relevant, nor is your second meaning very good

it means significant. ie not immaterial

that's all

Ah, that's brilliant. Thanks so much!! Any of those 3 meanings is fine for my purposes, lol.

Yes and relevant to the decision = significant

Thats all

Yes, but something can be relevant but, in the context, immaterial.

So you book a holiday cottage "800m from the beach" - it might be very important that it is close to the beach but it would probably be considered immateral if it was actually 850m from the beach. If it were in fact 1.5km from the beach then that might be more likely to be considered to be material.

spot on free button

things which are material are relevant but things that are relevant may not be material

you need to be a lawyer to appreciate the distinction perhaps but she did ask for a legal definition and yours aint it nancy

I think you are being a bit hard on Nancy - she did point out the contextually relevant point that in order to successfully repudiate a contract an erroneous statement must not only be material (and therefore relevant), but have been relied upon by the party to the contract to the extent that she would not have entered into the contract had the erroneous statement not been made.

Of course there are a whole load of other potential hurdles in the way of repudiation so dictionary definitions are not very useful IMHO.

"you need to be a lwayer to appreciate the distinction"... Pity I am then !

I gave the definition in a way which a lay person could understand in the context of the OP. Explaining it to someone who has no idea what it means as "material as in not immaterial" hardly helps.

Anyway how fab 4 lawyers (presumably) arguing over something that the client has already said was perfectly satisfactory for her purposes

You have all demonstrated how fascinatingly minute in its detail the law is - I love it.

you are a lawyer and you define material as relevant. ok...

Seriously get over yourself

No wonder half the country think lawyers are twats...