Ethica Institute of Islamic Finance™

Is a buyer entitled to cancel a contract upon inspection of the item?

If a buyer purchases an item without having first seen it, he is entitled to return it upon physical inspection without delay, whether provided for in the contract or not, even if the item is not of low or defective quality; particularly relevant in cases where delivery occurs considerably later than the finalization of the contract (e.g. mail-ordered purchases);

If a seller sells an item without having first seen it, he is not entitled to demand it back, though the buyer is still entitled to return it upon inspection;

If physical inspection proves satisfactory at first (having inspected a part of the item to ascertain the quality of the whole, when it is customary to do so, as is commonly done with larger quantities of fungible goods), but because the item’s quality varies markedly within itself (e.g. in a grain silo the visible grain is of satisfactory quality while the rest is not) the buyer discovers only later that the uninspected portion of the item is of low or defective quality, it is permissible to return the unsatisfactory portion of the item (if practicable, otherwise the whole item) once inspected.

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