General Terms and Conditions

In general terms and conditions you lay down rights and obligations that you and the company you do business with must adhere to. As an entrepreneur you have to deal with many different parties. This could be private individuals, companies or governments. These parties may purchase products and/or services from you. The parties hereby make agreements. Without making agreements, it becomes very difficult to do business. An agreement between you as an entrepreneur and a party doing business with you is called an agreement. Another word for agreement is contract. According to the law, it is not necessary for contracts to be on paper.

Many provisions in agreements apply not only to that one specific agreement, but to many of the same agreements. If you sell digital cameras, each customer has to deal with issues such as warranty, payment and liability. As an entrepreneur, it is then convenient not to have to include all the provisions on this subject in a contract for every new customer every time. It would then be better to put these provisions together in a document separate from the contract. You have to give these conditions to your client so he can read them.

In the vernacular they also refer to the “small print”. And indeed: it is important to read them well, but also to draw them up well yourself! Contracts do not legally have to be on paper. However, general terms and conditions must be on paper. If you want a customer to be bound by your general terms and conditions, they must at least be on paper. Verbal general terms and conditions are not valid.
In addition, general terms and conditions are intended to be used for multiple contracts, not for one specific contract. General terms and conditions govern issues that are the same for many customers. In general terms and conditions, you cannot include the price, compensation or consideration in goods or services. This specific part will be included in the agreement. In your general terms and conditions and as an entrepreneur, you can define the rules you want to use as a company when doing business.

General terms and conditions are actually standardized agreements. However, general terms and conditions do not automatically apply. It is necessary that both parties have agreed that these conditions apply. That arrangement will be laid down in an agreement. This can be done explicitly or tacitly. General terms and conditions shall therefore form part of the agreement. However, the client must agree to the general terms and conditions. It is therefore important that the customer is given a reasonable opportunity to take note of the general terms and conditions. You can do this by providing the conditions separately on paper, by sending them to the client or by printing them on the back of the contract or offer. For pure online agreements
(digital service) it is also permitted to provide the general terms and conditions only digitally (e.g. via a website).
In practice, as an entrepreneur you come across many different terms that have to do with general terms and conditions. You may come across terms such as delivery terms, purchase terms, sales terms, subscription terms, shipping terms, repair terms and many other terms. The law only knows the concept of general terms and conditions. All these variations are simply general terms and conditions. However, a distinction is made between general terms and conditions for consumers and for businesses. Also different rules apply for products that have been bought
through distance selling, for instance by a web store or the internet. The content of terms and conditions for delivery will certainly differ from terms and conditions for purchase.

Delivery terms and conditions are used by companies that primarily supply products and/or services. The usually larger companies with a relatively high volume of purchase can use purchasing conditions for this purpose. If you do business abroad, you will often come across the term general terms and conditions there.