Collective Citation: Unsolicited Goods and Services Acts 1971 and 1975
Date of Commencement: 12 August 1971 (s. 7(2))
For corresponding provisions in Northern Ireland, see the Unsolicited Goods and Services (Northern Ireland) Order 1976 (S.I. 1976/57).
s. 1 of this Act has been repealed by the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 (S.I. 2000/2334).
Offence under section 3(2) also prosecutable on indictment: see Unsolicited Goods and Services (Amendment) Act 1975 (c. 13).
ELIZABETH II
1971 CHAPTER 30An Act to make provision for the greater protection of persons receiving unsolicited goods, and to amend the law with respect to charges for entries in directories. [12th May 1971]
B e it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:— Rights of recipient of unsolicited goods. 1.—(1) In the circumstances specified in the following subsection, a person who after the commencement of this Act receives unsolicited goods, may as between himself and the sender, use, deal with or dispose of them as if they were an unconditional gift to him, and any right of the sender to the goods shall be extinguished. (2) The circumstances referred to in the preceding subsection are that the goods were sent to the recipient with a view to his acquiring them, that the recipient has no reasonable cause to believe that they were sent with a view to their being acquired for the purposes of a trade or business and has neither agreed to acquire nor agreed to return them, and either— (a) that during the period of six months beginning with the day on which the recipient received the goods the sender did not take possession of them and the recipient did not unreasonably refuse to permit the sender to do so; or (b) that not less than thirty days before the expiration of the period aforesaid the recipient gave notice to the sender in accordance with the following subsection, and that during the period of thirty days beginning with the day on which the notice was given the sender did not take possession of the goods and the recipient did not unreasonably refuse to permit the sender to do so.