Distance Contract

The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 set out a standard 14-day cancellation window that runs differently depending on what is being bought: for a service contract or digital content not on a tangible medium, the 14 days runs from the day the contract is entered into, but for a sales contract it runs from the day the goods physically arrive with the consumer (or, for split deliveries, from the day the last item arrives). If the trader fails to give the consumer the required information about the right to cancel, the cancellation period is automatically extended — potentially up to 12 months after it would otherwise have ended — until 14 days after the missing information is finally supplied. To exercise the right the consumer simply has to inform the trader of the decision to cancel, either using the model cancellation form or any other clear statement; once cancelled, the trader must reimburse all payments (including standard delivery cost) without undue delay and in any event within 14 days of getting the goods back or being shown evidence they were returned.

Not every distance sale carries the cancellation right, and not every off-premises or distance arrangement is caught in the same way — the Regulations carve out specific exclusions, such as goods made to the consumer's specification, perishable goods, sealed goods unsealed after delivery for hygiene reasons, and off-premises contracts worth £42 or less. There are also special rules for services and digital content: a trader must not begin supplying a service before the cancellation period ends unless the consumer has expressly asked for early performance and acknowledged that this will end their cancellation right once the service is fully performed; the consumer then only has to pay a proportionate amount for what was actually supplied before they cancelled. Because the definition turns on the trader operating 'an organised distance sales or service-provision scheme' rather than on the method of communication alone, a one-off email exchange between a business and a customer who otherwise deals with them in person may fall outside the distance-contract regime even though it happened remotely.