General Terms and Conditions by Lawyers

Having general terms and conditions drafted by legal experts means that your terms are tailored to your business, customers, products, services, and risks. A legal expert looks not only at standard clauses but also at the way you issue quotations, secure contracts, sell, invoice, and handle complaints.

Many entrepreneurs use general terms and conditions that are copied, outdated, or too general. This creates a false sense of security. Good general terms and conditions must be legally sound and work practically in your daily business operations.

MKB Juristen drafts custom general terms and conditions and reviews existing ones. Our legal experts and lawyers ensure terms and conditions that suit your industry, client type, and contract process.

It is advisable to have general terms and conditions drafted by a lawyer if you regularly sell, provide services, issue quotations, execute projects, sell online, or work with business clients. Especially in these cases, you need standard agreements regarding payment, delivery, performance, complaints, warranty, and liability.

Even if you already have terms and conditions, a legal review can be wise. Terms and conditions may be outdated, not being used correctly, or contain provisions that do not suit your customer type or industry.

When drafting or reviewing general terms and conditions, we assess, among other things:

• whether the conditions are correctly declared applicable;
• or terms and conditions of clients or customers are rejected;
• whether the provisions are appropriate for business customers, consumers, or both;
• payment, interest, collection, advances and retention of title;
• delivery, execution, planning and cooperation of the client;
• additional work, changes and additional costs;
• complaints, warranty, repair and proof of defects;
• liability, consequential damages and insurance coverage;
• intellectual property, licenses and usage rights;
• confidentiality and confidential information;
• cancellation, termination and final settlement;
• applicable law, competent court and disputes.

General terms and conditions contain standard agreements that you use across multiple agreements. Examples include payment terms, complaints, liability, warranty, force majeure, and applicable law. A contract, quotation, or order confirmation contains the specific agreements for one concrete assignment, sale, or collaboration.

In practice, you often need both. The quotation or agreement describes exactly what you are delivering and at what price. The general terms and conditions govern the standard legal rules surrounding this.

General terms and conditions only provide protection if they are actually applicable. To this end, you must declare them applicable before or at the time of concluding the agreement and give the customer a reasonable opportunity to read them.

Simply referring to it on an invoice is usually too late. That is why our legal experts also review your sales process: quotations, order confirmations, website, ordering process, order forms, email templates, or customer portals.

A free sample or copied set of terms and conditions may seem useful, but often does not fit your business. Provisions may be missing, too strict, outdated, or not align with your industry, customer type, or liability risk.

Furthermore, with a template, you often do not know why provisions have been included and how they should be used. As a result, a document may appear legally sound but offer insufficient protection in practice.

You have more contractual freedom with business customers than with consumers. Consumers are more strongly protected. Provisions regarding payment, warranty, complaints, cancellation, returns, and liability must therefore be formulated with extra care towards consumers.

If you operate in both B2B and B2C, the text must be tailored accordingly. Sometimes this can be done in a single set of terms and conditions with clearly separated provisions. Sometimes separate terms and conditions are more sensible.

Limitation of liability is often one of the most important reasons for using general terms and conditions. For example, you can stipulate which damages are excluded and to what amount liability is limited.

A liability clause must be appropriate for your activities, insurance, contract value, client type, and nature of the damage. A clause that is too strict can be vulnerable. A clause that is too restrictive offers insufficient protection.

Do you already have general terms and conditions? If so, we can check whether they are still legally and practically sound. We examine, among other things, applicability, payment, delivery, complaints, warranty, liability, consumer regulations, intellectual property, confidentiality, and their relationship to your quotations or contracts.

We also assess whether you use the terms and conditions correctly. Well-written text is of little use if the terms are only sent after agreement or do not align with your commercial process.

After a brief intake, we discuss your company, industry, customer type, sales process, contracts, and key risks. We then draft custom general terms and conditions or review your existing terms.

You will receive terms and conditions tailored to your practice, with attention to applicability, payment, delivery, complaints, warranty, liability, intellectual property, consumer regulations, and correct use in quotations, orders, and sales.