I declined my online purchase because some items were missing. Can Tesco charge me a delivery fee? DEAN DUNHAM answers

Last week, several items were missing from my Tesco online grocery order when it was delivered, so I rejected the entire order.

Tesco has now charged me for the delivery fee and says it is entitled to do so. Isn’t Tesco in breach of contract by not delivering the goods I ordered?

G. Moore, Basildon, Essex.

Dean Dunham responds: In most situations, a contract is formed when the selling party offers goods for sale and the buying party accepts the offer and pays for the goods.

In law, this is known as “offer, acceptance and consideration” and these are the main ingredients necessary to form a binding contract.

However, in the retail sector the situation is often different.

Retailers often cite in their terms and conditions that the advertising of goods for sale is an “invitation to treat” and that your decision to buy amounts to the “offer” element of the contract ingredients, meaning that the “acceptance” element is the retailer’s acceptance of the order.

Therefore, retailers’ terms and conditions will usually say that they only ‘accept’ your offer at the point at which they deliver the goods and the effect of this is that if it turns out that they cannot deliver, usually because they are out of stock, they can do so as at this point no contract has been formed.

Unsurprisingly, this is precisely what Tesco’s delivery terms and conditions state, so you cannot claim breach of contract.

But your question has a better answer. Section 26 of the Consumer Rights Act states that consumers are not obliged to accept deliveries “in instalments” unless this has been agreed at the time of purchase.

This means that if part of your order is not delivered, as in your case, you can reject the entire order and you should not be charged anything for it.

The only exception would be where the retailer (in your case, Tesco) had clearly informed you that you would be charged a fee if you rejected the entire order due to missing items.

In my opinion this is not the case and you are therefore entitled to a full refund from Tesco.

For me, the construction contract is a very Greek thing.

I had an extension done and it was a disaster. The builder did a poor job and did not comply with the building regulations.

I have made a claim to the court but my Greek builder has put up a defence claiming that the work was carried out to the usual standard and that the contract is governed by Greek law so I cannot sue in the English courts.

You’re right, the contract says so, but I didn’t realize it when I signed it. What is my situation?

S. Kemp, Bedfordshire.

Dean Dunham responds: The Consumer Rights Act 2015 states that services (such as building work carried out by a builder) must be carried out with “reasonable care and skill”.

This is measured by what a “reasonable” builder would have done and from what you say it seems clear that this builder’s work has been below the required standards.

The best evidence he has in this case is that the work does not comply with building regulations. His defence in this regard is almost certain to fail.

The next part of his defense (the jurisdiction point) is novel and interesting, but the good news is that, in my opinion, it is also going to fail.

The clause stating that Greek law applies to the contract amounts to what the Consumer Rights Act calls a “key term” and says that such terms must be “made prominent” in the pre-consumer contract.

You clearly did not realise this was in the contract, so it is unlikely your builder will be able to prove it was made “prominent”.

You will then be further confronted with Section 32 of the Consumer Rights Act, where a clause states that a foreign law applied to a consumer contract is not binding if the contract has a close connection with the UK.

Since the works under the contract were being carried out on his property in the UK, it is clear that there is a “UK connection”.