This isn't true. Any promise is sufficient for consideration. Cash doesn't actually have to change hands for a contract to be in effect.
If this wasn't the case then every single financial futures contract or swap would be null and void. These contracts incur no cash flow on day one. They're merely a promise by one part to pay another based on some event in the future. If your legal theory was true, then one party could simply cancel any losses by voiding the contract as soon as the position moves against them.
then you would only be able to sue over damages, and with a roof maybe your only damages are the time spent planning and getting the permits to get the roof done, but if TSLA hadn’t even started ripping off the roof then I don’t see what damages you could claim against them (TSLA’s legal team surely weighed the possibility of a class action lawsuit).
The damage is one had a deal to pay X for a roof. If they can't fulfill their end of the deal, the damage is the difference between X and what have to be paid to get what was promised (either from them or a different provider).
A failure of a contract for lack of consideration would be if there’s no exchange of value contemplated, ever. For example if I made a promise to provide you a valuable service for nothing in return.
In this situation both sides agreed to exchange something of value so there’s obviously consideration.
They could make an argument that no damages have occurred and claim you have no credible allegation of being harmed, but that’s a different thing and far from automatic.
I realize I phrased that incorrectly, I meant that a contract is only worth something if you can sue over it, and with $0 in damages (maybe not given the homeowner might be able to be comp’d for time or for money spent getting the permits) it wouldn’t make sense to sue Tesla over it.
>Anything of value promised by one party to the other when making a contract can be treated as "consideration": for example, if A signs a contract to buy a car from B for $5,000, A's consideration is the $5,000, and B's consideration is the car.
