The contract

According to article 1321 of the Italian Civil Code, a contract is “an agreement between two or more parties aiming at establishing, regulating and extinguishing a judicial property relation”. Among these contracts there is also the so called “deed of sale” by which a party (called “vendor” or “seller”) transfers the property of a good or another right to another person (the “buyer”), who undertakes the obligation to pay the corresponding “price”.  In the dead of sale of a product or a service, the seller and the buyer set some reciprocal obligations and rights, as well as the price, the time and the way by which the contract is to be executed. The contract does not have to contain unfair terms, implying particularly disadvantageous conditions for the consumer. The law points out some terms which are always considered unfair and for this reason they are illegal; some other terms might be considered unfair by a judge but the legal procedure is quiet long. It is therefore extremely important to read very carefully all the contract terms and conditions, even those that are written in small letters, before signing the contract: the most serious problem are hiding there! We should never be so lazy to ask the seller to tell us a short summary of what’s indicated in the contract, as afterwards we will be bound by what is actually  written in the agreement and that we have signed.  Therefore we should ask for a copy of the contract, we should read it very carefully, we should ask for explanations (it would be better to ask for written ones!) in case we have a few doubts about the actual meaning of some parts of it which is not totally clear to us, or we ask for  advise or explanations to someone who is more competent than us in such issues.

Let’s not forget that the same rules are applied in case we purchase via internet: therefore it is important to download all the agreement terms and conditions, which should be available on the website  and also to keep a copy of the purchase order and of the payment invoice. All these documents can turn out to be very useful in case some problems may occur, after the purchase (for example, in case the item is not delivered, or it is not the one we expected according to the advertising offer, or it does not have all the promised characteristics).