That’s not covered – it was worded very carefully!
Sometimes one party to a contract tries to avoid or restrict liability for
something which may well be thought to be part of the agreement.When
this arises in a consumer contract, it could be very unfair.
If, for example, in the carpet sale mentioned above, the buyer found that
one week after the carpet was fitted the part coloured red began to
disintegrate, a remedy would certainly be needed. It would be most
unfortunate if, on complaining to the seller, a term was found in their
contract which the buyer had not noticed, and which stated that ‘no
responsibility will be taken for damage or deterioration caused by dyes’.
Happily, this type of exemption clause, which could be extremely unfair on
a consumer, is now very restricted, and is the subject of debate in this part
of the book.
Who exactly made this agreement?
The relationship between the two parties, or people, involved in forming a
contract is known as privity of contract. Traditionally only those two
parties could enforce the agreement. This could cause problems, for
example, where one person makes a holiday booking on behalf of another,
but does not want to take legal action when something goes wrong.This
issue of privity is another aspect of a contract which is considered in this
part of the book.
94 Contract law