General terms and conditions

What are general terms and conditions? General terms and conditions are rules you use within your organization and which you apply to every delivery of products or services. Within the law, there are two requirements that a provision must meet in order to be considered general terms and conditions. First of all, the general terms and conditions may not contain the most important information about the product or service. Think of the price, the color or the quantity, these are also called core provisions. In addition, the general terms and conditions must be developed for repeated use. The latter is also referred to as 'standard terms and conditions'.

What is stated in the general terms and conditions?

As stated above, you may not include any core agreements in your general terms and conditions. What you are allowed to include in the general terms and conditions are, among other things, the payment conditions, warranty conditions, delivery terms or repair conditions. You may also include which branch organisation you are affiliated with or what happens in the event of any complaints.

What is the advantage of general terms and conditions?

If a customer accepts your general terms and conditions, all you have to do is agree on essentials, such as price and quantity. General terms and conditions create clarity and can save time.

How do you put the general terms and conditions into effect?

As an entrepreneur, you must ensure that you inform the consumer in time about your use of general terms and conditions. Subsequently, you must ensure that the consumer can actually consult the general terms and conditions. This can be done in various ways:

  • You give the general terms and conditions to the consumer before or at the time of the purchase/service. For example, by attaching them to the agreement or including them in the offer.
  • If it is not actually possible to make the general terms and conditions available, you can submit the general terms and conditions to the Chamber of Commerce or the Court for inspection. You must then let the consumer know where he or she can consult the terms and conditions.
  • If you sell via the Internet, you must make the general terms and conditions available online and make it possible for the consumer to save the terms and conditions. If this is not possible, you must send the terms and conditions to the consumer by post or e-mail.

Thus, you must make the conditions available to the consumer. Whether the consumer ultimately reads the conditions is his or her own responsibility.

Unreasonable general conditions

If you have not provided your general terms and conditions correctly or if the terms and conditions can be deemed unreasonable, the general terms and conditions may be invalidated. This is also referred to as 'nullifying the general terms and conditions'. You can then no longer derive any rights from them. The law contains examples of unreasonable general terms and conditions. When designing general terms and conditions, a legal expert will always take this into account.

For which clients do you use general terms and conditions?

It is wise to draw up separate terms and conditions for consumers and business clients. Consumers are subject to different rules than business customers, this is due to consumer protection. It may happen that small entrepreneurs and self-employed persons enjoy the same protection as consumers against unreasonable general conditions. This is also called 'reflex effect'.

In short, applying general terms and conditions can save you a lot of valuable time if done properly. When drawing up the general terms and conditions, make sure you use reasonable terms and conditions and subsequently offer the terms and conditions to your customers in the correct way.

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