Parliament united for the consumer

The law, which thickens the consumer's protection armor with changes in many areas from e-commerce to timeshare, from consumer loans to insurance, to prepaid housing sales, passed the Parliament the previous evening with the alliance of all parties.
With the new law, consumers will no longer be able to demand the entire debt in case of default in installment purchases. For prepaid residences, delivery will be mandatory within the contract period.

Consumers' right to withdraw from the timeshare contract will become easier. The 'authorized service' scam will end. By increasing the application limit to the arbitration committees to 30 thousand liras, it will be easier for the consumer to apply for more product and service complaints.

ADVANTAGES OF THE NEW LAW TO THE CONSUMER

In case of default in shopping in installments, the entire remaining debt from the consumer cannot be demanded. With the arrangement made in favor of the consumer, the seller will be able to demand the remaining debt if one-tenth of the entire debt in the contract is not paid. In the current practice, the entire debt was requested from the consumer who could not pay one-tenth of the remaining debt.

CANNOT BE FORCED TO INSURANCE

The consumer, who withdraws from the Consumer Loan contracts within 14 days and pays off the debt early, will be deemed to have exercised his right of withdrawal without the need for notification.

Consumer loan agreements cannot be made conditional on the purchase of ancillary financial products and services.

The housing finance institution will be able to offer the consumer a housing finance contract that includes credit-linked insurance, provided that it also offers a contract that does not include credit-linked insurance to the consumer.

DELIVERY AT THE LATEST 4 YEARS

It will be mandatory to deliver the prepaid residences within the contract period. This delivery period, which is 36 months in the current practice, has been extended to 48 months for large-scale housing projects, on the grounds that construction periods may be extended. Those who do not comply with this period will pay a penalty of 70 thousand lira per residence.

In order to prevent consumers from being victimized by establishing front companies, those who do not have real rights on the property subject to timeshare holiday are prohibited from selling time-time property or time-holidays.

The consumer's right to withdraw from the timeshare contract is also facilitated.

UPDATED INTERNET SHOPPING

Except for the goods produced on special request such as furniture, the delivery period cannot exceed 30 days in distance sales contracts. With the amendment regarding distance sales contracts, the responsibility of the intermediary service providers who mediate the establishment of distance contracts on behalf of the seller or supplier is increased. Intermediary service providers will be responsible for problems such as supply and stock shortages in online shopping.

While the application of consumers to arbitration committees has been facilitated, the upper limit of dispute cases to be handled by arbitration committees has been increased from 15 thousand 430 lira to 30 thousand lira. This paved the way for more product and service complaints in cases related to consumer grievances.

END OF THE AUTHORIZED SERVICE JUDGMENT

In order for consumers and companies to access accurate and up-to-date authorized service station information and not to be victimized by any deceptive practice, manufacturers and importers can register their information about all authorized service stations in the system established by the Ministry of Trade, and in promotions such as service receipts, signs and brochures to private service stations. It was made obligatory to use the term 'special service'.