Category: contracts

‘The standard, if unimaginative, attack on a timeshare contract is an action in breach of contract and claiming or claiming and damages under section 2(1) of the Misrepresentation Act 1967. This is a perfectly logical and valid start, but as I have written before, and will write again, the classic action in misrepresentation is a very cumbersome and formalistic cause of action. It is a construction rooted in Victorian values, and the axiom caveat emptor (buyer beware) is part of its legal DNA. No doubt it worked very well where gentlemen in stove pipe hats were buying and selling new parts for their latest foundry; it also works well when you have purchased a company after a comprehensive due diligence process and there are written representation and accounts to pore over. It is much more difficult to deploy in the modern world where “consumers” (not a concept with which the Victorians would have been comfortable) are being subject to what may loosely but accurately be called “high pressure selling techniques” which employ a mixture of half-truths and psychological exploitation.’

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Park Square Barristers, 18th October 2017

Source: www.parksquarebarristers.co.uk