Consumer spare parts regulation

Consumer spare parts regulation

Over the last few years, there has been an enormous amount of regulatory development in terms of consumer and user protection in the European Union and, therefore, in each of its Member States, and one of the most significant changes has been the legislation on spare parts, which is complemented by the impact of the Artificial Intelligence Regulation in relation to defective products.

What does this regulation imply?

The regulations on spare parts, either the amendments made to Royal Legislative Decree 1/2007, of 16 November, approving the revised text of the General Law for the Defence of Consumers and Users and other complementary laws, or the transposition of Directive (EU) 2019/2161, known as the Omnibus Directive, have improved the guarantees and rights of consumers and users in their day-to-day dealings with professional traders and, in the specific case, in their rights of access and information about after-sales services, improves the guarantees and rights in favour of consumers and users in their day-to-day dealings with professional traders and, in this specific case, in their rights of access and information about after-sales services, and all of this without these guarantees or additional information entailing extra costs for consumers and users, provided that they meet the requirements for exercising their rights.

Consumers’ protection

The spare parts regulations for consumers and users in Spain include the following key points:

• Availability of spare parts: manufacturers and distributors must ensure spare parts for at least 5 years after the product is withdrawn from the market.
• Consumer information: they must inform about the availability of spare parts and the period of time they will be available.
• Repairs: products must be repairable. If spare parts are not available, the consumer may be entitled to a replacement or compensation.
• Guarantees: during the warranty, repairs or replacements of defective products must be at no additional cost to the consumer.
• Right to information: consumers should be informed about after-sales service and how to request repairs and obtain spare parts.

These measures protect consumers and promote the durability and sustainability of products, so that consumers are not only left helpless in the absence of goods of identical or similar quality that they may need as replacements, but their rights have been extended, placing greater and stricter obligations on manufacturers and distributors of products.

Guarantees

Regarding the new legal guarantee period, which increases from 2 to 3 years from the delivery of the product, it is understandable that this new legal guarantee period is not applicable to the activity of a manufacturer as the products are sold to other companies (wholesalers) and not to consumers. Therefore, it is those wholesalers who must comply with this new legal guarantee period obligation established in RD 7/2021.

In this sense, it is possible to agree with the wholesaler the warranty period that both parties want to establish for the products sold to the wholesaler in the private contract they sign. Notwithstanding the above, it is important for a trader to bear in mind that, although it is not obliged to provide this 3-year legal guarantee by RD 7/2021, this will be the period that will normally be established in terms of legal guarantee and, therefore, wholesalers are probably going to ask the said manufacturer, as direct sellers of the products to consumers, for a 3-year guarantee period so that they are fully covered in this respect against possible claims for non-conformity with the product that the consumer addresses to the wholesaler.