Consumer Credit Act 1974

X136U.K.For sections 14 and 15 substitute the following sections (which reproduce the existing provisions of those sections subject only to changes in terminology)—

“14 Special provisions as to conditional sale agreements.

(1)Section 11(1)(c) of the principal Act (whereby provisions in certain circumstances a breach of a condition in a contract of sale is treated only as a breach of warranty shall not apply to conditional sale agreements which are agreements for consumer sales.

(2)In England and Wales and Northern Ireland a breach of a condition (whether express or implied) to be fulfilled by the seller under any such agreement shall be treated as a breach of warranty, and not as grounds for rejecting the goods and treating the agreement as repudiated, if (but only if) it would have fallen to be so treated had the condition been contained or implied in a corresponding hire-purchase agreement as a condition to be fulfilled by the creditor.

15 Supplementary.

(1)In sections 8 to 14 above and this section—

• “business ” includes a profession and the activities of any government department (including a Northern Ireland department), local authority or statutory undertaker;

• “buyer ” and “seller ” includes a person to whom rights and duties under a conditional sale agreement have passed by assignment or operation of law ;

• “condition ” and “warranty ”, in relation to Scotland, mean stipulation, and any stipulation referred to in sections 8(1)(a), 9, 10 and 11 above shall be deemed to be material to the agreement.

• “conditional sale agreement ” means an agreement for the sale of goods under which the purchase price or part of it is payable by instalments, and the property in the goods is to remain in the seller (notwithstanding that the buyer is to be in possession of the goods) until such conditions as to the payment of instalments or otherwise as may be specified in the agreement are fulfilled;

• “consumer sale ” has the same meaning as in section 55 of the principal Act, as amended by section 4 above ;

• “creditor ” means the person by whom the goods are bailed or (in Scotland) hired under a hire-purchase agreement or the person to whom his rights and duties under the agreement have passed by assignment or operation of law ; and

• “hire-purchase agreement ” means an agreement, other than conditional sale agreement, under which—

(a)goods are bailed or (in Scotland) hired in return for periodical payments by the person to whom they are bailed or hired, and

(b)the property in the goods will pass to that person if the terms of the agreement are complied with and one or more of the following occurs—

(i)the exercise of an option to purchase by that person,

(ii)the doing of any other specified act by any party to the agreement,

(iii)the happening of any other specified event.

(2)Goods of any kind are of merchantable quality within the meaning of section 10(2) above if they are as fit for the purpose or purposes for which goods of that kind are commonly bought as it is reasonable to expect having regard to any description applied to them, the price (if relevant) and all the other relevant circumstances ; and in section 11 above “unmerchantable ” shall be construed accordingly.

(3)In section 14(2) above “corresponding hire-purchase agreement ” means, in relation to a conditional sale agreement, a hire-purchase agreement relating to the same goods as the conditional sale agreement and made between the same parties and at the same time and in the same circumstances and, as nearly as may be, in the same terms as the conditional sale agreement.

(4)Nothing in sections 8 to 13 above shall prejudice the operation of any other enactment including any enactment of the Parliament of Northern Ireland or the Northern Ireland Assembly or any rule of law whereby any condition or warranty, other than one relating to quality or fitness, is to be implied in any hire-purchase agreement.”