Thursday, 28 August 2008
Fair trading covers a wide area of consumer protection law such as the Trade Descriptions Act, Property Misdescriptions Act, Consumer Credit Act and many more Acts of Parliament besides. The primary purpose of this type of legislation is to ensure 'truthfulness of trade' thus preventing consumers being misled during contractual negotiations for goods and services.
The Act ensures that descriptions applied to goods and services are accurate and has been used successfully to combat common problems such as car 'clocking' and product counterfeiting. Its scope is very wide and also covers descriptions applied in all areas of trade.
This Act is designed to regulate those persons in the course of estate agency or property development business who falsely describe or make misleading statements in relation to land. This includes amongst other things descriptions in relation the address and location of a property, room sizes, easements and maintenance charges.
This Act is designed to regulate those businesses or individuals who offer credit facilities to consumers so that there is 'truth in lending' and covers areas such as advertising, loans, mortgages and other credit transactions.
We aim to ensure that:
Further information is available from the Office of Fair Trading's website. It is designed with two purposes in mind:
You can find essential information for businesses on how to comply with legislation enforced by the Office of Fair Trading, check advice on consumer issues, follow the progress of investigations and action taken, or simply download the leaflets and reports.
Alternatively, you can contact our Trading Standards using the details at the top of this page.
