§ 2074.Rejected offer as equivalent to production and tender of money, instrument, or property

This section captures a doctrine sometimes called constructive tender. When someone owes a specific sum of money, or must hand over a particular written instrument or a specific item of personal property, making a genuine written offer to do so counts, in the eyes of the law, the same as if the money or item had changed hands in fact, provided the other side does not accept it. A debtor who reaches out in good faith and gets turned away is not left worse off than one who never tried at all.

Two conditions keep this rule from swallowing every casual promise. The offer must be in writing and specific: naming a particular sum, instrument, or item of property, not a vague willingness to work something out. And the rule only operates when the offer goes unaccepted; if the other side takes what is offered, that is ordinary performance, and there is nothing constructive about it. Read together with Section 2075’s receipt requirement and Section 2076’s rule on objecting to a tender, this section supplies the first step in a short sequence governing how a tender is made, documented, and challenged.