Let’s immediately answer the question: is it possible to do without a contract? You can, if you want to take a chance and become the owner of a kitchen from the category of funny pictures-memes on the theme “expectation-reality”.
Many buyers (especially in small towns where people order furniture from handicraft kitchen manufacturers) treat contracts as formal.
They leave their sheet with measurements, reach oral agreements on material and colors, exchange phones and wait for delivery …
And then the day of delivery comes – there is no kitchen, and the manufacturer feeds you “breakfasts” and “day after breakfasts” …
Of course, you can come to this private manufacturer and try to solve the issue in a raised voice, but this may not give anything … And there is essentially nothing to go to court (or to the police), and as a result, there is no kitchen or money.
Therefore, dear readers, remember! The contract is not a formality, but a necessity, both for the seller and for the customer.
Who should prepare the document?
The manufacturer’s or seller’s company, as a rule, has a prepared standard contract template, where the necessary details are entered.
General recommendations for the form of the contract:
- Drawn up in two identical copies;
- The name doesn’t matter. It can be: a contract for the manufacture of a custom-made kitchen; contract for the manufacture of kitchen furniture; kitchen unit purchase agreement, or another name. Main content!
- Filling in the requisites. What information about the customer the seller has the right to ask for: last name, first name, patronymic, passport data, tax number, address, telephone number.
The most important terms of the contract
Ekaterina Lushchik: then I will talk about the conditions that must be agreed by the parties and fixed:
Subject of the contract
Everything is simple here. The seller undertakes to manufacture and transfer to the ownership of the customer a kitchen set in accordance with the specification and sketch that are attached to the contract.
- Specification – a table with a list of materials, colors of all kitchen components (body, facades, facades, countertops, handles, glass, slats, legs, lighting, other fittings).
- Sketch – drawing-diagram of the assembled kitchen with marked measurements.
These additions are mandatory and must be signed by both parties.
Andrey Belov: Please pay attention to the fact that contract is an agreement… This means that the conditions cannot be imposed by one of the parties, and if you, as a customer, want to change any condition, you can insist on it.
It is important to immediately clarify points about delivery and installation of the kitchen… It’s good when these services are immediately provided for in the contract and included in the announced cost of the product. If the contract deals only with the manufacture of the kitchen and not a word about delivery and installation – be prepared for additional costs.
Timing
Agree on exact date the end of the work and what exactly is meant by the end of the work (signing of the act on the installation of the kitchen).
Kateryna Lushchik notes that such formulations as: for 60 days, not earlier than two months are very vague formulations and give additional reasons to drag out time, referring, for example, to weekends and holidays.
Order, size, payment method
- We recommend to agree on partial prepayment in the form of an advance… Make sure that the prepayment is not referred to in the contract as a security. By law, the advance is included in the total payment, but the deposit is not.
- Complete calculation should produce only upon completion of installation all items of the kitchen set.
- If the kitchen came in a configuration that does not meet the conditions specified in the contract, then the customer has the right not to pay its cost until the contractor corrects the situation. In case of full or partial prepayment, the customer has the right to demand a refund.
- The fact of transferring money must be confirmed by a receipt or receipt.
Additional terms
Ekaterina Lushchik: If the purpose of the main terms of the contract is to obtain the final result in the declared quality and quantity (kitchens of the required size, color and configuration within the agreed period), then the purpose of the additional conditions is to resolve the disputes that arise between the customer and the contractor.
Additional conditions include:
- Rights and obligations of the parties… It should not be such that one of the parties has only rights, and the other has only obligations. The contract must protect both parties. Be sure to read these sections, and if something is not clear – ask questions to the manufacturer.
- Warranty… Check the stated guarantees. The advertisement may indicate: we make custom-made kitchens with a guarantee of up to 5 years, and in the contract – a guarantee for 1 year. It turns out that the guarantee is much less for the kitchen made of the material you have chosen. Moreover, there will be 100% different warranty periods for different kitchen elements. Therefore, all the points related to warranty service should be clarified before signing the contract.
- Responsibility of the contractor when installing the kitchen… Very often during the installation process, assembly workers damage the customer’s fresh repair. They can hit a corner, scratch the laminate, hit the ceiling, and the like. Who will pay for the repairs later?
Therefore, we recommend that you clarify this point in the contract for the manufacture of the kitchen or conclude a separate contract for the installation, which will spell out the responsibility of the contractor for any damage caused by the actions of the kitchen installers.
There may be other conditions in the text of the agreement (force majeure, the procedure for resolving disputes, the procedure for changing the agreement). Above, we focused on the most important for the customer.
7 tips from a lawyer
7 simple rulesthat need to be adopted when concluding a contract for the manufacture of a kitchen:
- Read what you sign.
- Do not be afraid to ask to write down what is important to you (even small details): even in your own words, by hand, over the printed text – but write it down.
- All amounts and dates should be denoted with numbers with mandatory decoding in words, so that it is impossible to correct;
- Check the article numbers of the name of the material and kitchen components, which are indicated in the specification.
- Do not order a kitchen without installation. Delivery and installation costs must be included in the final price of the contract.
- To document all materially significant actions: payment, work performed, claims for equipment: transferred money as an advance payment – fixed; there were discrepancies in the configuration – they drew up an act-claim.
- Check the guarantees stated in the advertisement; keep the contract and payment receipts throughout the entire period of warranty service.
Use our advice and remember that a contract is like a lifeline; it will not insure you against getting into an unpleasant situation, but it will help you not to drown.
What controversial situations did you have when ordering a kitchen? Has the agreement helped you?
