What counts as breach — and what kind
A breach is any failure to perform a contractual obligation without lawful excuse. The law's first question is severity: breach of a condition (or a sufficiently serious breach of an intermediate term) entitles you to terminate and claim damages; breach of a warranty gives damages only. Repudiation — conduct showing the other party no longer considers itself bound — lets you accept the repudiation, end the contract and sue. Choose carefully: treating a minor breach as repudiatory, and walking away, can make you the party in breach.
The remedies
- Damages — the default remedy: money to put you where performance would have left you (expectation loss), limited by causation, remoteness (the two limbs of Hadley v Baxendale) and your duty to mitigate
- Debt claims — where the claim is simply for a price due, it's pursued as a debt: no remoteness, no mitigation argument, summary procedures available
- Specific performance — a court order compelling performance, granted where damages are inadequate; routine for land contracts, rare for services
- Injunctions — restraining threatened breaches (confidentiality, restraints) where speed matters more than compensation
- Agreed remedies — liquidated damages, retention funds, termination rights: check the contract before the common law
The clock: six years, usually
Under the Statute of Limitations, an action on a simple contract must generally be brought within six years from the breach (not from when you discovered it), and twelve for contracts under seal. Waiting also degrades everything else: witnesses scatter, companies dissolve, and the counterparty's ability to pay erodes. The strongest claims we see are the ones brought early with a clean paper trail.
What to do this week
Preserve everything — the contract, emails, texts, invoices, photos. Don't fire off a termination notice before advice: wrongful termination converts your claim into theirs. Quantify your loss realistically, including what you can mitigate. Then take advice on the route: most claims settle, and settle best when the first letter is precise — see letters before action. Construction payment disputes have their own fast statutory track through our construction practice.
How our fees work
You get a fixed quote in writing before any work starts — no hourly-rate surprises and no meter running while you think. If the scope changes, the quote is revised in writing before we continue. In contentious business, a solicitor may not calculate fees or other charges as a percentage or proportion of any award or settlement. How contract solicitor fees work in Ireland →
Frequently asked questions
What damages can I claim for breach of contract in Ireland?
The measure is expectation loss — the position performance would have produced — subject to causation, remoteness and mitigation. Wasted expenditure can be an alternative measure. Damages for distress are rare in commercial cases; loss of profit is recoverable where within the parties' reasonable contemplation and not excluded by the contract.
Is it worth suing for a small debt?
Small claims procedures exist for modest consumer amounts; for business debts, a well-drafted solicitor's letter resolves a surprising proportion without proceedings. The honest cost-benefit conversation — what it costs, what you'd recover, how collectable they are — is the first thing we give you.
The contract was never written down. Can I still claim?
Yes — oral contracts and contracts formed by conduct are enforceable (with limited exceptions requiring writing, like contracts for the sale of land). The challenge is proof: quotes, texts, invoices, payments and performance all evidence the terms.
Talk to a solicitor who reads contracts for a living. Call Mary Molloy Solicitors today.
Whether you are drafting terms for your business, handed a contract to sign, or unsure what a clause commits you to, an early conversation costs little and prevents a lot.
📞 Call 01 5827148Try the Contract Risk Checker
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