Page 409 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn
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CONTEMPORARY CIVIL LAW
provisions regarding non-performance apply.16
Similarly, the seller's duty to safeguard the buyer from eviction is replaced by a duty
for the seller to come to the aid of the buyer, if the buyer is sued for eviction of the thing sold. This duty, according to the lawgiver's comments to article 7:16, originates in the seller not having delivered free from third-party claims.17
Finally, the scope of the seller's liability for either a breach of his duty to deliver free from defects or to safeguard the buyer from eviction is determined by article 6:95 NBW. Unlike article 1283 BW 1838, the new BW's provision for non-performance does not take into account the seller's good or bad faith.18
The mentioned changes in the new NBW closely resemble how the ALR and ABGB, the two codes most inspired by natural law thinking, shape the giver's/promisor's liability for breach of safeguarding duties. The ALR of 1794 likewise eliminates the difference between breach of safeguarding duties and breach of contract due to non-performance. It considers what was traditionally described as a breach of safeguarding duties as a species of non-performance. The ABGB also starts from a broad concept of Gewährleistung which covers cases in which the recipient receives a thing which turned out to be defective, burdened, or liable to a third-party claim.19
However, the NBW differs from the ABGB in one important aspect. It does not provide for separate remedies for loss suffered because of the non-conformity or non- performance. In the NBW, non-conformity or non-performance automatically imply a right to damages.20 The ABGB, however, considers the recipient's remedy for damages independent of the remedy for non-performance or Gewährleistung. Consequently, damages due to non-performance or breach of Gewährleistung have to be claimed with a general remedy lying for contractual and extra-contractual loss irrespective of the cause of the damages. As a result, the buyer of a defective thing has to make a separate claim for damages based on a degree of fault in addition to his claims for curing the breach of contract. Both remedies have their own period of limitation.21
16 MvT Tweede Kamer, zitting 1981, 16979, no. 3, to art. 7.1.2.5 (= art. 7.15), p. 33 (retrievable online at <www.statengeneraaldigitaal.nl>): 'De verkoper die een zaak levert die in strijd met het voorgestelde artikel behept is met een last of beperking, zal voortaan, evenals de verkoper die de eigendom niet overdraagt, in de nakoming van zijn verbintenis tekortschieten met alle gevolgen welke het gemene recht daaraan verbindt'.
17 MvT Tweede Kamer, zitting 1981, 16979, no. 3, to art. 7.1.2.6 (= art. 7.16), p. 33 (retrievable online at <www.statengeneraaldigitaal.nl>): 'Uit hetgeen... is opgemerkt, vloeit voort dat deze verplichting niet meer haar grond zal vinden in een bijzondere plicht tot vrijwaring, maar in de verplichting van de verkoper de eigendom, vrij van alle bijzondere lasten en beperkingen, over te dragen'.
18 The new BW largely answered to the demands in Directive 1999/44/EG on consumer sales. Nevertheless, the transposition of this Directive in 2003 resulted in new articles and some additions concerning consumer-buyers to existing articles. As these changes are mostly of a cosmetic nature they will not be further discussed in detail here. Newly inserted articles concerning consumer sales are 7:22, 7:24 and 7:25. In article 7:23 (1) a sentence has been added. For a detailed discussion see Verhoeven, 'Het gelijk', pp. 37-45.
19 See 7.2.2.2 (ALR) and 7.4.2.1 (ABGB).
20 Art. 6:96 NBW.
21 See 7.4.2.1 (ABGB). The ALR knew a similar systematic 7.2.2.1 (ALR).
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