Are you ready for the Consumer Rights Act 2015?

As we mentioned in previous website articles, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 came into force on 1 October 2015. There are some key changes such as enhanced consumer remedies which may make businesses have to adjust their trading practices in order to reduce the risk of incurring additional liability. One such remedy is the short-term right to reject which is limited to 30 days. The 30 day period can be extended by the trader, but cannot be reduced.

The 2015 Act uses a concept of non-conforming goods, services and digital content as the trigger for the remedies available to consumers. The specific non-conformity dictates which 2015 Act remedy applies. These remedies include, amongst others, rejection, refund, repeat performance and price reduction.

It introduces a new category of product – ‘digital content’. It sets out a hierarchy of remedies that will apply to digital content such as a right to compensation where digital content provided under a consumer contract causes damages to a device or other digital content belonging to the consumer. There are also several terms which relate to the liability of a trader which cannot be excluded or restricted.

There are a number of practical steps that businesses can take in relation to the 2015 Act:

• review their standard consumer terms to make sure they comply with the 2015 Act, in particular with the new fairness requirements and the new enhanced consumer remedies of non-conforming goods, digital content and services;
• review the processes that it uses to deal with non-conforming goods, digital content and services and, if necessary, amend them to factor in these new consumer remedies. This process should include ensuring their employees who deal with customers on a daily basis are aware of the new rules and deal with consumer requests for repair, replacement, repeat performance and refunds accordingly; and
• review all company information which it gives to consumers to make sure all information is up to date, accurate and reliable.

If you would like some advice on how the 2015 Act affects your business, please contact our corporate & commercial team on 01242 514000 or email theresa.grech@willans.co.uk.