Guarantee
A secondary obligation to answer for the debt, default, or miscarriage of another person, distinct from a primary indemnity. A guarantee must be evidenced in writing under section 4 of the Statute of Frauds 1677.
Independent editorial summary — not the official statute text. Read the official version on legislation.gov.uk.
The writing requirement for guarantees is one of the oldest surviving rules in English contract law, tracing back over three centuries. Section 4 of the Statute of Frauds 1677 provides — in its original spelling — that '[n]o Action against Executors, &c. upon a special Promise, or upon any Agreement, or Contract for Sale of Lands, &c.' shall succeed 'unless Agreement, &c. be in Writing and signed'.
The operative text of the section makes clear that it is specifically a promise to answer for someone else's obligation that triggers the writing requirement: no action shall be brought 'whereby to charge the Defendant upon any speciall promise to answere for the debt default or miscarriages of another person' unless the agreement, or some note or memorandum of it, 'shall be in Writeing and signed by the partie to be charged therewith or some other person thereunto by him lawfully authorized.' That is the statutory origin of the modern rule that an oral guarantee, however genuinely agreed, cannot be enforced against the guarantor.
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Official sources
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