Welcome to the Legal Advice Office in South Africa

• Commercial Law
• verbal agreement
• written vs verbal agreement
• oral agreement

Can you legally rely on a person’s word only instead of a written change in an agreement?

This was the simple inquiry we got the other day.

“Are oral variations of an agreement valid?”

 To illustrate let us take an example:

If, for example, you agree to rent a house from a friend of yours for a fixed period of two years.

You both furthermore agree that you should enter into a written lease agreement and you have a written lease drawn up properly.

Everything goes well until the monthly rental increases come into effect as per the written lease agreement at the end of the first year.

You discuss the situation with your friend who agrees to waive the increase verbally.

But is this sufficient and can you legally rely on his word only?

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• The Consumer Protection Act
• Defective motor vehicle
• Auto repair
• refund

Within six months after the delivery of goods, the consumer may return the goods to the supplier, without penalty, risk or expense.

On Wednesday we published a blog on your rights as a consumer to receive good quality goods when buying them from a supplier.

Yesterday; we had the following query:

“I just recently bought a motor vehicle in February 2018 from a dealership in Mid Rand and I am not happy with the vehicle as it has numerous mechanical and electrical issue and the dealership is now refusing to carry out any further repairs on the vehicle as they say their one month warranty has now expired. What are my rights?

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• Second Hand Cars
• Car Dealer
• Faulty Motor Vehicle
• voetstoots
• consumer protectn act
• Roadworthy

Consumers must be very careful about agreeing to buy goods that are sold “voetstoots” or “as is” as they thereby waive their rights to a very large extent.

Yesterday; we had an inquiry from a lady who had bought a second hand 2014 BMW from a second-hand dealer in Gezina, Pretoria.

She bought the car for R 110500.00 in a cash deal on the 26^th January 2018 and took delivery on that same day after it had been roadworthied and transferred into her name by the dealer.

For the next two months there were no major issues with the car but on the 27^th March 2018 the car broke down on the M3 in Johannesburg and had to be towed into a BMW dealership in Johannesburg for repairs. The quote for repairs to the engine was for R 34500.00 and the diagnostic test showed major wear and tear and also damage to the cylinder head and pistons which had clearly been there for at least the last 6 months.

What were her legal rights?

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