Tuesday 30 March 2010

Answering problem questions on Unfair Contract Terms

http://www.kent.ac.uk/law/currentug/skills/documents/AdvanceProblemQuestionanalysis-unfaircontractterms..ppt

Please follow the above link which provides a powerpoint presentation giving further information on the Unfair Contract Terms

A few points of interest:

UCTA
Section 12 - Defintion of a consumer - An individual or business acting outside their usual trade or profession
Section 14 - Under S.14(2) Sales of Goods Act 1979 a consumer is entitled to reject an item if it is not of satisfactory quality.

UTCCR
It is very unlikely that a contract will ever be exempt from the test of fairness.
Again, a consumer is defined as being 'limited to natural people acting outside their normal course of business", although a business can never be a consumer.

Thursday 25 March 2010

My contract, and consumer regulations

For those of us in the midst of a legal battle with RTA, the following might be of interest:-

Peter Symmons & Co v Cook (1981) 131 NLJ 758


The plaintiff firm of surveyors bought a second-hand Rolls Royce from the defendants which developed serious defects after 2,000. It was held that the firm was acting as a consumer and that to buy in the course of a business 'the buying of cars must form at the very least an integral part of the buyer's business or a necessary incidental thereto'. It was emphasised that only in those circumstances could the buyer be said to be on equal footing with his seller in terms of bargaining strength.

So, this assumes that unless the buying of businesses forms part of our businesses then we must be acting as a consumer in appointing RTA.
 
Presumably this is part of the legal precendence used in Gill's case.