I am required to provide an outline description of the effect of the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982, including the quality and delivery of services, relating them to the service that is required.

PASS 4

I have to outline how consumers might be protected in a contract for the supply of goods and services such as faulty plumbing of a new kitchen.

Implied terms in contracts for services

Under the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982, the following terms are automatically implied in contracts for the supply of a service.

Care and skill

Section 13 provides that ‘where the supplier is acting in the course of a business, there is an implied term that the supplier will carry out the service with reasonable care and skill’. If, for example, you employ someone to cure the damp in your house, and they fail to do so, that will only be a breach of the implied term if the damp could have been cured using reasonable care and skill. If reasonable care and skill would not have solved the problem, there is no breach of the implied term (though there may be breach of an express term, if the firm promised that they could eradicate the damp).

Time

Section 14(1) provides that in a business transaction, where the parties do no specify a time by which the job should be finished, there is an implied term that the supplier will carry out the service within a reasonable time’.

What is a reasonable time is a question of fact, and will obviously depend on the nature of the work done. The section only applies to contracts entered into in the course of a business.

Price

Section 15 (1) states that where the parties have not fixed a price ‘there is an implied term that the party ...