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You are legally obliged to avoid using unfair standard terms in written or spoken contracts. Businesses develop standard terms for use in contracts. They are not negotiated with the consumer. In written contracts, the standard terms are usually found in the small print.

A standard term is unfair if it causes a major imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations under the contract, to the detriment of consumers. If your contract does include an unfair standard term, it is not binding on the customer.

Businesses must express standard terms in plain and understandable language. A customer should be clear about its meaning. If there is doubt as to what a term means, the meaning most favourable to the consumer will apply.

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 regulates the use of unfair terms. The exceptions are terms:

• that reflect provisions which by law you must include in contracts
• that have been individually negotiated
• in contracts between businesses
• in contracts between private individuals
• in certain contracts that people do not make as consumers - for example, relating to employment or setting up a business
• in contracts entered into before 1995

Common standard unfair terms can lead to:

• misleading consumers about the contract, or their legal rights
• denying consumers full redress if things go wrong
• tying consumers into the contract unfairly
• the business not having to perform its obligations
• consumers unfairly losing prepayments if the contract is cancelled
• the business varying the terms after the customer has agreed to them - eg to supply a different product, increase the price, or reduce consumers' rights
• consumers being subject to unfair penalties

The law protects businesses as well as individual customers against unfair contract terms. See business to business sales contracts.

Customer complaints about unfair standard terms

If a customer thinks you have used unfair contract terms, they can complain about it to:

• the Northern Ireland Trading Standards Service
• the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)
• the Utility Regulator
• Which? - the consumers' association

See the page on customers' rights to challenge unfair contract terms in our guide on customer protection.

Enforcing unfair standard terms regulations

The FCA cannot determine whether a term is or is not unfair, or whether any individual consumer is entitled to compensation. However, they do have a duty to consider any complaints about the unfairness of a contract term, and if they believe that a term is unfair, they have the power to ask a court for an injunction to prevent it from being used or recommended for use. However, only the courts can finally decide whether a term is or is not unfair.

Businesses have a legal duty to treat customers fairly and trade honestly. From 2008 until 2025 the controlled unfair practices used by traders when dealing with consumers. As of 6 April 2025, controls over unfair practices will now be found in Part 4 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCCA).

The DMCCA sets out broad rules outlining when practices are unfair. These fall into five main categories.

1. Unfair trading laws and misleading claims

Any description of products or services you sell or hire to customers must be accurate and not mislead them. You must provide consumers with the correct information and not omit details about the products and services, so they are fully informed about whether to buy them.

2. What information must not be omitted from invitations to purchase

An invitation to purchase involves providing information to consumers during the promotion, sale or hire of a product. This includes information on the characteristics of the product and the price (or starting from price), which helps customers decide whether to go ahead with a purchase or take a different transactional decision. For example, they may decide to visit a shop, click on a website, view a property or seek their right to return a faulty product.

Examples of an invitation to purchase include:

• a menu in a restaurant
• an advertisement on television or in a newspaper
• items listed on a website, including online marketplaces
• goods on display in shops

When making an invitation to purchase, there is certain information you must include:

• Main characteristics of a product, such as what it is and what it does.
• The total price, including all non-optional charges eg VAT, admin fees or other charges, the customer will have to pay if they purchase the product. If the total price cannot be reasonably calculated in advance, you must provide information on how the price will be calculated.
• Your identity and the identity of any other person you may be acting on behalf of.
• Your contact details, including your geographical address and email address. If you are acting on behalf of someone else, you must provide their address or if you have an alternative address for serving documents, you must include it.
• Any optional charges - eg delivery or postal charges. If these can’t be calculated in advance, then you must state that they may be payable.
• Information on the right to withdraw or cancel the order if applicable.
• Information on alternative arrangements you may be using for payment, delivery, performance or complaint handling that are different to any information you have already published. For example, if a delivery is going to take longer than the time you have specified on your website, you must state this.
• Any information you are required to provide under other legislation, eg .

If you fail to provide the information listed above in a way that is unclear, untimely or provide it in a way that customers are unlikely to see it, then you could be committing a criminal offence.

You won’t have to provide information that is already evident - eg you won’t need to provide your address if the customer is already standing in your shop.

3. Unfair trading laws and aggressive selling practices

To comply with the law, you must not put unfair pressure on customers to purchase goods or services. Such selling methods are known as aggressive practices.

A practice is aggressive if it is likely to cause a consumer to take a transactional decision they would not have taken otherwise, and it uses any of the following:

• harassment
• coercion - including the threat or use of violence
• undue influence – for example, using a position of power to put pressure on a consumer to make a decision

There are a range of factors that are considered when deciding whether a trader has used an aggressive practice, including:

• The timing and location of the practice. For example, putting pressure on a customer to sign a contract in their home at 9pm.
• The nature or persistence of the practice. For example, staying in a customer’s home for an excessively long period of time to make a sale.
• The use of threatening or abusive language or behaviour.
• A threat to take an action that cannot legally be taken.
• Taking advantage of any vulnerability of a consumer. This can include the consumer’s circumstances as well as their age, health or credulity.

4. Unfair trading laws and banned practices

The DMCCA lists 32 banned trading practices which are considered unfair in all circumstances.

Examples of banned practices would be if your business displays a trust mark or quality mark without having received the necessary authorisation or your business writes or commissions others to write or publishes fake reviews.

A full list of the 32 banned practices can be found in the .

5. Unfair trading laws and the duty to trade fairly

To comply with the law, it is your duty as a business to trade fairly and honestly with your customers. This practice is known as acting with professional diligence, which means carrying out work with the appropriate skill and care expected in the trader’s area of activity.

An example of acting with professional diligence is ensuring you provide consumers with a refund for goods that are of unsatisfactory quality. Another example is ensuring that you carry out pre-sale checks including the mechanical condition, history and mileage of a vehicle before you advertise, market or sell.

Unfair trading laws and a consumer’s right to redress

If a consumer has been the victim of misleading actions or aggressive selling practices affecting their decision to buy, they may have the right to redress through a civil court order if they meet certain conditions. The rights of redress for affected consumers have not yet transferred to the DMCCA, therefore the provision for consumer’s rights to redress under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPRs) will still apply.

For a consumer to be entitled to legal redress, they must have entered a contract with a trader to:

• buy a product
• sell goods
• buying or selling a service
• make a payment for the supply of a product

The rights a consumer is entitled to fall into one of these three areas:

1. A right to undo the contract

When it’s still possible to undo the transaction and place the consumer back in the original position before the contract was made. The consumer has 90 days to end the contract and get a refund and must not have already accepted a discount relating to the product and the illegal practice.

2. A right to a price reduction

This applies when the right to undo has been lost. The consumer may also claim a price reduction when the right to undo has not been lost but they do not wish to end the contract.

3. Entitled to claim compensation

Consumers may be entitled to claim compensation in addition to the right to undo or the right to a price reduction. Compensation can be claimed for alarm, distress, physical inconvenience, or discomfort, as well as economic losses suffered because of the illegal practice.

These rights do not apply to misleading omissions.

Additional responsibility of the trader

A trader also has a legal responsibility to ensure misleading actions or aggressive practices are not carried out by the producers of goods or digital content they sell if they have reasonable knowledge of an illegal practice. For example, you could be held legally responsible for a manufacturer’s misleading advertisement.

When you sell a product to a customer, you are entering into an agreement or contract with them. A customer has legal rights if the goods they purchased from you do not 'conform to contract' - ie if they are faulty.

How to comply with the law

Under the Consumer Rights Act, in order to ensure your products conform to the contract, they should:

• match their description - by law, everything that is said about the product must not be misleading, including whether it is said by a sales assistant, or written on the packaging, on advertising materials, in-store or in a catalogue
• be of satisfactory quality - including being of an acceptable appearance, free from minor defects (eg marks or holes), safe to use, durable and in good working order
• be 'fit for purpose' - ie if a customer states (or when it should be obvious) that an item is wanted for a particular purpose, even if it is a purpose the item is not usually supplied for, and you agree the item is suitable, or do not say it is not fit for that purpose, then it must be reasonably fit

What customers can do if you break the contract

If your goods don't match the specifications you gave before the sale, then under the Consumer Rights Act, you have effectively broken the contract with the customer. For more information, see customers' key rights when buying or hiring goods and customers' key rights when buying services.

Customers have the right to reject unsatisfactory goods and claim refunds. See customers' rights to reject goods and claim refunds.

In some circumstances, customers can't legitimately complain about unsatisfactory goods - eg if they bought the goods more than six years ago, or if you pointed out the defect before the sale.

The Sale of Goods Act

The Sale of Goods Act 1979 was replaced by the Consumer Rights Act which came into force on 1 October 2015. The Sale of Goods Act may still apply to claims regarding faulty goods purchased on or before 30 September 2015.