And again, they carefully use written to mean written and verbal to mean spoken.
The first two pages of my Google search failed to show anyone using "verbal contract" to mean "written contract" - and it's pretty obvious why. A written contract is just a contract, or if you really need to specify whether it's written or spoken you'd be obtuse to use the word "verbal" to describe a written contract.
here's one. Oh wait, they're using verbal to talk about oral contracts.
http://www.contractsandagreements.co.uk/law-and-verbal-agree...
here's another. oh wait! they're doing the same.
http://www.independent.co.uk/student/young-entrepreneurs/con...
Here's one from a national UK newspaper. They're using verbal to mean oral.
Here's another UK newspaper: http://careers.theguardian.com/careers-blog/contracts-employ...
And again, they carefully use written to mean written and verbal to mean spoken.
The first two pages of my Google search failed to show anyone using "verbal contract" to mean "written contract" - and it's pretty obvious why. A written contract is just a contract, or if you really need to specify whether it's written or spoken you'd be obtuse to use the word "verbal" to describe a written contract.
Perhaps it's a US / UK thing?
EDIT: put more smilies in.