Abusive clauses
Clarity, transparency and simplicity are just a few of the requirements for the contents of a contract to be considered valid. There are however other ambiguities it helps to be aware of.
Unfair terms of contract are those which suppress or impede judicial proceedings or resources for appealing to a non-legally-regulated arbitrator. Nonetheless, there are some which the buyer must take into account and which are not always simple to spot. These include:
- Those which require the fulfilment of consumer responsibilities, without including those of the seller.
- Those which jeopardise the consumer and not the professional.
- A one-sided price increase, or agreement of the price upon handover of the property.
- Any clauses of disproportionate compensation for consumer non-fulfilment.
- Those which suppress or impede judicial proceedings or resources for appealing to an non-legally-regulated arbitrator.
- Automatic extensions to long-term contracts without the consent of the consumer.
- Transfer of the contract, with a reduction in purchaser guarantees and carried out without the consent thereof.
More common cases
The house buyer must take particular care to memorise some of the more unfair contract terms in purchase contracts:
- Those which omit or do not clearly indicate the amount deferred, the type of annual interest applied to the outstanding amount and the relative conditions of amortization. Also considered unfair terms of contract –and very common –are those which allow the seller to increase deferred payments during the validity of the contract.
- Those which imply a price increase for services, financing, deferrals, surcharges, expenses, indemnifications or penalties that do not correspond to the services openly accepted by the buyer or, in some cases, the tenant. For this reason, should the property require any additional works that were not identified during its construction, these must be identified to the buyer, who must then agree to the costs to be imposed thereby.
- Those which render the buyer or tenant responsible for faults, defects or administrative or banking errors which, in reality, are unbeknown to them.
- Those which oblige the buyer to pay for expenses deriving from the preparation of the title deeds on behalf of the seller. This means expenses deriving, for example, from the newly constructed properties, from shared property, from mortgages, etc.