§ 1. When does the Craftsman Services Act apply?
Machine-translated from Norwegian. The Norwegian text is the one that applies. Read the original in Norwegian.Norsk English العربية Polski Українська
In brief
- The Act applies to businesses (næringsdrivende) that perform services for private individuals.
- A consumer (forbruker) is an individual who is not mainly acting in business activity (næringsvirksomhet).
- Work on items (ting) and real property (fast eiendom) is covered, but not treatment of live animals and not new construction of homes.
- § 2 and § 3 draw the line against purchases and secure the minimum protection.
The text of the law (unofficial translation)
§ 1. General scope
- work on items, but not treatment of live animals.
- work on real property, except the new construction of a building for residential purposes and other work carried out directly as part of such construction.
What does this mean?
This section decides whether the Act applies at all. It applies when someone running a business activity takes on a job (oppdrag) for a private individual. The job can be to repair, maintain, install or convert. The Act is made for consumers, meaning private individuals who buy a service for their own use, and it protects them against the professional party (part). By consumer, the Act means an individual who is not mainly acting as part of a business activity. A company that orders a job for its operations is therefore not covered.
The requirement of business activity is broad. It is not only ordinary companies that count. Associations and public bodies are also considered businesses when they charge for performing services. What matters is that the person doing the job does it for payment (vederlag), and that the person ordering it is a private individual.
Next, the work itself must be of a type the Act covers. Work on movable property (løsøre) (items you can move), for example a bicycle or a machine, is covered. Treatment of live animals is excluded. Work on real property, such as a home (bolig) or a plot of land, is also covered. The exception is new construction of houses for residential use, and work that is directly part of building such a house. Example: a consumer brings a bicycle to a service provider (tjenesteyter) for repair, and this falls under the Act. If, on the other hand, the consumer orders a completely new house, the job is not covered. Work in a home that already exists, however, is covered.
The section is connected to several of the Act's nearby rules. § 2 draws the line against purchases: if the agreement (avtale) is on the whole a purchase, this Act does not apply to the ordering, delivery or repair work that comes with it. § 3 on the mandatory nature of the law (ufravikelighet) (rules that cannot be contracted out of) means that a service provider cannot use the contract to put the consumer in a worse position than the Act does. Once the Act applies, the consumer therefore gets a minimum level of protection. § 4 regulates who bears the risk when a notice (melding) is sent: the person who sends it in a proper way can treat the notice as delivered on time even if it arrives late or does not arrive.