Hire-Purchase Act, 1946

Requirements relating to hire-purchase agreements.

3.—(1) Before any hire-purchase agreement is entered into in respect of any goods, the owner shall state in writing to the prospective hirer, otherwise than in the note or memorandum of the agreement, a price at which the goods may be purchased by him for cash (in this section referred to as the cash price):

Provided that this subsection shall be deemed to have been sufficiently complied with—

(a) if the hirer has inspected the goods or like goods and at the time of his inspection tickets or labels were attached to or displayed with the goods clearly stating the cash price, either of the goods as a whole or of all the different articles or sets of articles comprised therein, or

(b) if the hirer has selected the goods by reference to a catalogue, price list, or advertisement, which clearly stated the cash price either of the goods as a whole or of all the different articles or sets of articles comprised therein.

(2) An owner shall not be entitled to enforce a hire-purchase agreement or any contract of guarantee relating thereto or any right to recover the goods from the hirer, and no security given by the hirer in respect of money payable under the hire-purchase agreement or given by a guarantor in respect of money payable under such a contract of guarantee as aforesaid shall be enforceable against the hirer or guarantor by any holder thereof, unless the requirement specified in the foregoing subsection has been complied with, and—

(a) a note or memorandum of the agreement is made and signed by the hirer and by or on behalf of all other parties to the agreement, and

(b) the note or memorandum contains a statement of the hire-purchase price and of the cash price of the goods to which the agreement relates and of the amount of each of the instalments by which the hire-purchase price is to be paid and of the date, or the mode of determining the date, upon which each instalment is payable, and contains a list of the goods to which the agreement relates sufficient to identify them, and

(c) the note or memorandum contains a notice, which is at least as prominent as the rest of the contents of the note or memorandum, in the terms prescribed in the Schedule to this Act, and

(d) a copy of the note or memorandum is delivered or sent to the hirer within seven days of the making of the agreement:

Provided that if the Court is satisfied in any action that a failure to comply with the requirements specified in the foregoing sub-section or any requirement specified in paragraph (b), (c) or (d) of this subsection has not prejudiced the hirer, and that it would be just and equitable to dispense with the requirement, the Court may, subject to any conditions that it thinks fit to impose, dispense with that requirement for the purposes of the action.