This book deals with lifetime contracts, a group of contracts which generally have the most important role to play in people's daily lives and existence. These contracts establish social long-term relations which, with regard to certain periods of the lifetime of individuals, provide essential goods, services, as well as labor and income opportunities for self-realization and participation. The book questions the general principles of European contract law built onto the classical model of sales contracts. It argues that a general life time contract should be integrated into the codification of modern private law, and it proposes a set of principles governing such social long-term relations. Divided in five parts (Introduction; Lifetime in Contract Law; Labor Contracts; Consumer Credit Contracts; and Residential Tenancy Contracts), the book is the result of annual discussion meetings that took place between 2006-2013. Twenty-one members of the EuSoCo.eu research group from eleven countries participated in a multi-cultural project to provide a contractual model for the credit and service economy of the 21st century.