Can One Set a Price Range as the Price in a Sale?
Hanafi Fiqh
Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
Question: Is it permissible to have a range as the price? If one is agreeing on a price of an item/service but the exact price is not available although a range is, would this render the contract corrupt? For example, I buy tickets at a travel agency and I give him my credit card number. The agent tells me that he will process the payment and that there will be a service fee. Although he is unable to tell me exactly how much the service will be, he can give me a range and says that it will be somewhere between $20 and $40. Is that a corrupt contract?
Answer: In the Name of Allah Most Merciful & Compassionate
If the upper limit is set in such transactions, it is implicit agreement to pay that amount, and the contract is thus valid and sound.
The mentioned entails an acceptance of paying $40 and the contract is not corrupt.
And Allah alone gives success.
Faraz Rabbani
(Originally answered on the SeekersGuidance Academy’s Islamic Law for Seekers: Transactions Course Forum)