§ 37. What do you pay if no price was agreed?
If you did not agree on a fixed price, you must pay the normal market price. The seller is not allowed to dictate an inflated price afterwards, and cannot add hidden invoice fees.
Machine-translated from Norwegian. The Norwegian text is the one that applies. Read the original in Norwegian.Norsk English العربية Polski Українська
The text of the law (unofficial translation)
If a purchase is made without the price following from the agreement or from information the seller (selger) has given in advertisements, display offers or the like, the consumer (forbruker) shall pay the market price (gjengs pris) at the time of the agreement for the same kind of item sold under similar circumstances, provided the price is not unreasonable. If there is no such market price, the consumer must pay what is reasonable having regard to the nature and quality of the item and the circumstances otherwise.
If the purchase price (kjøpesum) is to be determined by number, measure or weight, the quantity at the time when the risk (risiko) for the item passes to the consumer shall be used. If the price is determined by weight, the weight of the packaging is deducted first.
The seller cannot, in addition to the purchase price, charge a fee for issuing and sending an invoice unless this clearly follows from the agreement.
What does this mean?
The seller cannot freely dictate an inflated price when the invoice arrives. They cannot send an invoice for NOK 20,000 for an item that sells for NOK 2,000 everywhere else. You only have to pay the "market price" — the market price at the time of the agreement.
The law also puts a stop to a well-known trick: invoice fees. A shop cannot add NOK 69 to "create the invoice" unless they told you about this in the agreement.
Example
Tom buys a specially imported grill without asking about the price. An invoice for NOK 18,000 turns up. He checks online and sees that the grill sells for NOK 8,000 everywhere. Under § 37, Tom can reject the invoice and instead pay the market price of NOK 8,000.
Common mistakes
- Paying an unreasonably high price because "I forgot to ask"
- Putting up with random administration fees on invoices that you were not told about
What should you do?
Always ask about the price first. Is the invoice too high? Find examples of the market price at other retailers and send them to the seller with an offer to pay the market price.