Drafting General Terms and Conditions for Electrical Engineering

General Terms and Conditions for Electrical Engineering are the standard terms used by an electrician, electrical installer, or technical service provider for quotations, order confirmations, fault reports, service contracts, and installation projects. They regulate recurring agreements regarding payment, additional work, materials, safety, completion, warranty, breakdowns, and liability.

These terms and conditions are not the same as the specific quotation or project agreement. The quotation describes exactly what you will do and at what price. The general terms and conditions govern the legal rules that frequently arise in electrical work.

MKB Juristen drafts general terms and conditions for electrical engineering that align with your activities, clients, technical risks, and quoting method. We look specifically at safety, existing installations, inspection, commissioning, malfunctions, materials, and liability.

General terms and conditions are important as soon as you regularly perform electrical work, issue quotations, resolve faults, supply materials, modify installations, or make maintenance agreements. Particularly in electrical engineering, disputes can arise regarding malfunctions, safety, existing installations, additional work, acceptance, warranty, and damage due to downtime.

For electricians, installers, charge station installers, solar panel companies, and technical service providers, good conditions are important because practice often depends on existing installations, the grid operator, material availability, access to the site, technical prerequisites, and cooperation from the client.

The content depends on your activities and clients. In many cases, we assess or arrange, among other things:

• validity of quotations and technical specifications;
• payment terms, call-out charges, rush rates and material prices;
• additional work, time and materials work and changes during execution;
• safety, working without voltage, and cooperation from the client;
• existing installations, hidden defects and insufficient capacity;
• delivery, selection and availability of materials and components;
• grid operator, connection capacity and dependencies on third parties;
• delivery, test, inspection and commissioning;
• warranty, repair and distinction between workman's and manufacturer's warranty;
• breakdown service, response times and service contracts;
• liability for damage, downtime, or consequential damage;
• applicability of ALIB, AVIC or own terms and conditions;
• rejection of purchasing terms and conditions of business clients.

In the installation industry, industry terms and conditions are frequently used, such as the ALIB for installer companies and terms and conditions for consumer work. Techniek Nederland positions the ALIB 2024 for agreements between installers and business clients. Different points of attention apply to consumer work, as consumers are more strongly protected.

Your own general terms and conditions may be used alongside or instead of industry terms and conditions, but this must be done carefully. You must prevent multiple sets of conditions from overlapping or provisions from contradicting one another. It must also be clear which conditions were declared applicable before or at the time of concluding the contract.

We therefore assess whether your own terms and conditions, ALIB, AVIC, supplementary project terms and conditions, or a combination thereof best suits your activities and clients.

Safety and technical standards play an important role in electrical work. Depending on the assignment, standards such as NEN 1010 or NEN 3140 may be relevant. However, it is not advisable to include standards in the terms and conditions that are too general or without context. Doing so could cause you to assume obligations that do not fit the assignment.

General terms and conditions for electrical engineering must therefore clearly state which standards or technical requirements apply, the scope of the assignment, whether inspection or testing is part of the work, and what falls outside the scope of the assignment. It must also be stipulated what information, access, and cooperation the client must provide to enable safe working practices.

Breakdown work requires different arrangements than a planned installation. In the event of breakdowns, it is often unclear in advance what the cause is, which parts are needed, and how long the repair will take. Therefore, rates, call-out charges, rush surcharges, investigation costs, material usage, and follow-up work must be clearly regulated.

In maintenance and service contracts, it is important to concretely define response times, availability, parts, exclusions, duration, and termination. An agreement regarding fault handling is not automatically a guarantee that every problem can be fully resolved within a fixed period.

Electrical work is often carried out in existing homes, commercial buildings, or installations. In such cases, hidden defects, outdated cabling, insufficient capacity, faulty connections, or previous substandard work may only become apparent during execution.

Good general terms and conditions make it clear that such circumstances may lead to additional work, delays, or modifications to the assignment. They also stipulate when the installer is liable for their own work and when problems arise from existing circumstances or external causes.

General terms and conditions do not automatically become part of an assignment. You must declare them applicable before or at the time of concluding the agreement and give the client a reasonable opportunity to read the terms. In practice, this means: sending them along with the quotation, as an attachment to the order confirmation, or via a clear download link.

Merely referring to this on the invoice is usually too late. Moreover, with business clients, you must be very careful if the client uses their own purchasing or contract terms. If you wish to apply your own terms, you must clearly declare them applicable and expressly reject the client's terms.

Do you work for both consumers and business clients? Then you must take different rules into account. Consumers are better protected, including regarding information, payment, complaints, cancellation, warranty, and liability. Provisions that are defensible for business clients may be too strict for consumers.

Therefore, a single general set of terms and conditions is not always ideal. Sometimes, separate terms or provisions for private and business clients are more sensible. We assess which approach suits your electrical engineering company and the type of projects you undertake.

Do you already have general terms and conditions for your electrical engineering company? If so, we can check whether they still suit your activities, clients, and quoting method. We examine, among other things, applicability, rates, breakdowns, additional work, safety, delivery, warranty, liability, materials, service contracts, and the relationship to ALIB, AVIC, or other terms and conditions.

We also assess whether the terms and conditions are used in practice. A good text is of little use if the terms and conditions are not sent along, are not included in the quotation, or do not align with your work orders, order confirmations, and invoices.

After a brief intake, we discuss your electrical work, clients, quotation process, troubleshooting, materials, service agreements, and key risks. We then draft customized general terms and conditions for electrical engineering or review your existing terms.

You will receive terms and conditions tailored to your practice, with attention to payment, additional work, safety, existing installations, delivery, inspection, warranty, malfunctions, materials, liability, and correct use in quotations and order confirmations.