§ 28. Compensation for delay and defects by a tradesperson

This section is the Act's main rule on getting money back when a craft service goes wrong. If you as a consumer have suffered a financial loss (økonomisk tap) because the work came too late or was defective, you can demand that the tradesperson covers the loss. This is called compensation (a sum of money that covers a loss). Note how the rules are structured. You do not first have to show that the tradesperson has done anything blameworthy. If he wants to escape liability, he must himself prove that an obstacle beyond his control is behind the loss. The obstacle must also be something he could not have anticipated when the agreement was made, and something he could neither avoid nor get around.

The liability also applies when the tradesperson has handed part of the job (oppdrag) over to others, for example a subcontractor (underleverandør). In that case he is free only if the other party would also have been without liability because of such an obstacle. An example (constructed, using only the roles from the law): the service provider uses a subcontractor who delivers late. The consumer can direct the claim at the service provider, and he must cover the loss unless an unforeseeable obstacle would also have cleared the subcontractor.

The third subsection concerns damage to items other than the one you ordered work on, and to items that are not closely connected with what that item is to be used for. The exemption from liability is different from the one in the first subsection. You can claim compensation, and the tradesperson only escapes if he shows that the damage was not caused by error or negligence on his part.

The section has several neighbours that complete the picture. § 29 extends liability to damage to items or property while it is with the service provider or otherwise under his control, and states that the rules in § 28 then apply correspondingly. § 30 sets the limits for how much you can get: the financial loss, insofar as it was foreseeable. § 31 deals with standard compensation (normalerstatning) for delay, that is, a standardised compensation that can be agreed, and that can also be claimed according to normal practice in the trade. Sections § 11 on the consumer's claims in case of delay and § 21 on claims in case of defects refer to this section, as does § 27 on claims against an earlier supplier in the chain (tidligere leverandørledd).