Something I'd never heard before - no automatic right to change?

Anselm

bris wrote: »

I disagree if you hand over a mars bar with a £5 note and dont say anything it would be assumed you are offering the ticket price for this mars bar so technically you have not entered into a contract for £5.

To make your case valid you would have to say to the cashier, I offer you £5 for this mars bar, so no, I don't believe you would have to accept the position of not being legally entitled to change.

Yeah, on second thoughts, I don't agree with myself either.

I don't agree with myself because I think the "no change can be demanded" is only in reference to 'legal tender', which is the settlement of debts from a court, not from everyday transactions.

Also, like you say, I think it's arguable that there is an implied term for change, through custom.

Terms implied in to a contract can come from three different sources: statutory implied terms, terms implied by conduct and terms implied at common law (implied in fact/ implied in law).

I now think, that in the course of everyday business transactions, there is an implied term that change will be given by custom. In Hutton v Warren (1836), it was held that "a contract may be deemed to incorporate any relevant custom of the market..." and where it is normal practice in a particular trade (British Crane and Hire Corp Ltd v Ipswich Plant Hire Ltd [1975]) it will be held that the term is incorporated. Especially if an outsider could not fail to make the discovery about the custom. (Kum v Wah Tat Bank Ltd [1971])

So I think we could safely argue that in say a retail park, if all the retailers gave change, then there would be an implied term.

Of course, it goes without saying that this is mere opinion and errors/omissions should be expected. I emailed my contract law tutor awhile ago about this problem, but he never replied. :eek:

Mankysteve

The price on the shelf in British contract law is and invitation to treat, the seller has made you an invite to you as the potential buyer to make an offer, which the seller can either accept or reject regardless of the shelf price.

When you make an offer to buy the goods then the contract to formed. so if the price they ring p at the till is different to the one on the shelf then tough luck, as far as the contract side of things concerned.

Now if a shop has lots of pricing mistakes then trading could act against the seller for misleading prices, but that's a different thing all together.

Now of course most shops will honor price errors within reason as it would be poor customer service which is where I think people get this idea that if the price on the shelf is wrong, that the price they get it at legally.

http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/cgi-bin/brighton-hove/con1item.cgi?file=*ADV1011-1111.txt