Under contract law, when rights are transferred to another party but the original party remains liable for performance, this is known as what?

• A. Assignment
• B. Assignee
• C. Assignor
• D. Executed contract

Answer: (A)

Transferring the right to receive benefits under a contract to someone else while the original party still must perform is called an assignment. In this arrangement the person who transfers the rights is the assignor, and the person who gets them is the assignee. The key idea is that the assignment moves the benefit, not the obligation—so the assignor remains liable for fulfilling the contract, and the assignee simply gains the right to collect what’s owed. If the goal were to relieve the original party of liability, that would require a novation, where a new party takes on both rights and obligations and the old party is discharged. An executed contract, by contrast, is simply a contract that has already been fully performed.