The Journal

There is no 6 year warranty in the UK: what the law gives you

Six years is how long you have to start a court claim for breach of contract in England, Wales and Northern Ireland; Scotland has five. Neither is a promise that anything will work for that long. This piece sets out the real sequence from the statutes: 30 days to reject, six months in which the retailer carries the burden of proof, and a long stretch after that in which you do.

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Where the six-year claim came from, and what it gets wrong

No UK statute gives goods a six-year warranty. The figure is real, but it measures something else: how long you have to start a court claim for breach of contract in England and Wales. Section 5 of the Limitation Act 1980 is one sentence: "An action founded on simple contract shall not be brought after the expiration of six years from the date on which the cause of action accrued."

The government's guidance to retailers on GOV.UK compresses it into a line: "Customers have up to 6 years to make a claim for an item they've bought from you (5 years in Scotland)." Drop the words "to make a claim" and what is left reads like a term of cover. The explanatory notes to the Consumer Rights Act 2015 saw the misreading coming. Paragraph 105 gives six years, or five in Scotland, to pursue remedies, then adds: "This does not mean that a consumer may seek a remedy under the Act for any fault arising in goods at any time in the six (or five) years following delivery, but only if one of the statutory rights is breached." The notes' example is a very cheap kettle that stops working fully after four years, where there may be no remedy at all, "as a reasonable person might not expect a bottom of the range kettle to last that long".

The claim overpromises, because a fault in year five is not automatically the retailer's problem, and it hides what matters: your position changes twice long before year six, at 30 days and at six months.

A limitation period is a deadline to sue, not a term of cover

A limitation period bounds the claim, not the goods. It says when a court will stop listening, and nothing about whether you have a case. For faulty goods the case is a breach of the term in section 9(1) of the Consumer Rights Act 2015: "Every contract to supply goods is to be treated as including a term that the quality of the goods is satisfactory." Section 9(2) sets the standard as what a reasonable person would consider satisfactory, taking account of any description, the price and all the other relevant circumstances. Section 9(3) lists durability among the aspects of quality.

Durability is the honest version of the six-year idea. An expensive appliance that fails in its third year under ordinary use may never have been durable enough to be satisfactory. If so, the term was broken on the day the appliance was delivered, not on the day it stopped. Business Companion, the Chartered Trading Standards Institute's guidance for traders in England and Wales, dates the breach as "usually the date of delivery in a contract for the sale of goods", and says of the six years: "This does not mean all goods have to last this length of time".

Two things follow. The clock runs from delivery, not from the day the fault shows, so a fault found in year five leaves about a year to act. And how long a thing ought to last depends on that thing, at that price, as described, which is why no statute gives a number of years for a kettle or a phone.

The sequence the Consumer Rights Act sets out, and what changes at each step

The goods provisions of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 extend to the whole United Kingdom. Section 19(3) lists the remedies for goods that do not conform to the contract in tiers.

Step one is the first 30 days. Section 22(3) sets the time limit for the short-term right to reject at "the end of 30 days beginning with the first day after these have all happened": ownership has passed to you (or possession, on hire, hire-purchase or conditional sale), the goods have been delivered and, where the trader has to install them or do anything else to let you use them, the trader has told you that is done. Perishable goods get a shorter period. Inside the window a faulty item can be rejected for a refund without your accepting a repair first. If you agree to a repair or replacement, the 30 days stop running while you wait, and if what comes back still does not conform you have at least seven days more.

Step two is available from the start; it is what remains once the 30 days have gone. Under section 23 you can require the trader to repair or replace the goods, "within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to the consumer", with the trader bearing the costs, including labour, materials and postage. The choice is yours unless the remedy you pick is impossible, or disproportionate compared with the other.

Step three is the last tier. Section 24(5) opens a price reduction or the final right to reject in three situations: after one repair or one replacement the goods still do not conform; neither can be required; or the trader has not acted within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience.

Steps two and three have no end date in the Act. They stay available in year two and year four, up to the limitation deadline, provided you can show the goods did not conform on delivery.

The six-month mark: the day the burden of proof moves to you

Section 19(14) provides: "For the purposes of subsections (3)(b) and (c) and (4), goods which do not conform to the contract at any time within the period of six months beginning with the day on which the goods were delivered to the consumer must be taken not to have conformed to it on that day." Read on legislation.gov.uk on 20 September 2026, the period is six months, with no amendment recorded. The figure differs elsewhere: Article 11 of EU Directive 2019/771, which applies to contracts concluded from 1 January 2022, sets the equivalent presumption at one year and lets member states make it two.

Inside the six months it is for the trader to disprove the fault, and section 19(15) allows two ways: it is "established that the goods did conform to the contract on that day", or the presumption is "incompatible with the nature of the goods or with how they fail to conform to the contract". Business Companion's example is obvious signs of misuse.

One detail is usually missed. The subsection's opening words apply the presumption only to repair, replacement, price reduction and the final right to reject; the explanatory notes spell out that it "does not apply where the consumer exercises the short-term right to reject". A buyer who rejects outright in week two can be asked to show the fault was there, so describe it precisely, in writing, at once.

After six months the ordinary rule returns: whoever makes the claim proves it. GOV.UK tells retailers: "You can ask a customer to prove an item was faulty when they bought it if they ask for a repair or replacement after 6 months." The rights have not changed. Who does the proving has.

A second thing changes at about the same point. Section 24(10) bars any deduction from the refund if the final right to reject is exercised in the first six months, unless the goods are a motor vehicle, or of a description the Secretary of State has specified by order. Section 24(11) dates those six months from the same three events as the 30 days rather than from delivery alone, so on an ordinary shop purchase the two dates fall together. After that, under section 24(8), the refund "may be reduced by a deduction for use".

Proving a fault after six months: reports, model-wide faults and dated records

What you have to prove is narrower than it sounds. You need not show the goods were visibly broken on day one. Business Companion notes that some defects do not become apparent until later, and "it is enough to prove that there was an underlying or hidden defect at that time". Three kinds of evidence carry that argument.

An independent report from a repairer or engineer, saying what failed and why. Nothing in the Consumer Rights Act requires one, and nothing in it says who pays. Business Companion advises traders that where an independent expert is to be used, the consumer and trader "would ideally both agree to this in writing". Push for that: an expert both sides accepted in advance is hard for either to dismiss. Ask in the same letter for the fee back if the report finds a manufacturing fault. On the small claims track in England and Wales, rule 27.5 of the Civil Procedure Rules says no expert may give evidence without the court's permission, and Practice Direction 27A limits what can be recovered for experts' fees to "a sum not exceeding £750 for each expert".

Evidence that the fault is not yours alone. If the manufacturer has recalled the model, published a repair programme for the same component or acknowledged the fault in writing, that points to a defect in design or manufacture, which by definition was there at delivery.

Dated records. This is where the receipt earns its keep, though it is not the only thing that will do the job: what else a trader has to accept as proof that you bought the goods is set out in "Returning something without a receipt: what UK law actually asks you to prove", elsewhere on this site. In the long middle stretch you need to fix three dates: delivery, which starts both the six-month presumption and the limitation clock; the day the fault first showed; and the day you told the trader. Keep the receipt or order confirmation, the delivery note, dated photographs of the fault, any repair history, and every message to and from the trader.

Scotland: five years, and a different kind of clock

The Consumer Rights Act is the same in Scotland. The outer deadline is not, and the difference is more than one year.

Length. Section 6 of the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973 sets five years, and Schedule 1, paragraph 1(g), applies it to "any obligation arising from, or by reason of any breach of, a contract or promise".

Effect. The English section says an action "shall not be brought". The Scottish section says that after five years without a relevant claim or acknowledgement, "the obligation shall be extinguished". One closes the court door; the other removes the obligation itself.

Trigger. The English clock runs from the date the cause of action accrued, ordinarily delivery, whether or not you know about the fault. The Scottish clock runs from what section 6 calls the appropriate date, for most obligations the date the obligation became enforceable. For an obligation to pay damages, section 11 puts that at the date the loss, injury or damage occurred, and since 1 June 2022 section 11(3) has moved it later where the creditor was not aware, and could not with reasonable diligence have been aware, that loss had occurred, that it was caused by a person's act or omission, and who that person was. On a hidden defect, a Scottish damages claim can start its five years later than delivery.

Side by side: England and Wales, six years from accrual, action barred. Northern Ireland, six years as well, as paragraph 105 of the explanatory notes records. Scotland, five years from the appropriate date, obligation extinguished.

None of this is a reason to wait in Scotland. The 1973 Act does not say how a claim for the Consumer Rights Act's own remedies, as opposed to damages, is dated, and the safe reading is five years from delivery.

A manufacturer's guarantee: what it adds, and why it binds the guarantor

A manufacturer's guarantee is a separate promise from a separate person. Your statutory rights are against the trader who sold you the goods; the guarantee is against whoever gave it. Section 30 of the Consumer Rights Act defines a guarantee as an undertaking "given without extra charge" by a person acting in the course of business that, if the goods do not meet the specifications in the guarantee statement or any associated advertising, the consumer will be reimbursed or the goods repaired, replaced or handled in some way. Section 30(3) makes it enforceable: "The guarantee takes effect, at the time the goods are delivered, as a contractual obligation owed by the guarantor under the conditions set out in the guarantee statement and in any associated advertising."

The guarantor is bound in contract although you paid it nothing for the promise. The advertising counts, so a five-year guarantee printed on the box can be enforced. And what a guarantee adds is mostly relief from proof. Read the conditions: one that promises a repair if the product fails within two years, without asking why, lifts exactly the burden the statute places on you from month seven.

GOV.UK tells retailers that the guarantee sits on top of the statutory rights: a customer has the same right to free repairs or a replacement "regardless of whether they have a warranty or guarantee or not", and a retailer may still have to repair or replace an item when the warranty has run out.

So you can claim after the manufacturer's warranty has expired. The claim is against the retailer, under the Consumer Rights Act, on the terms above: the goods must not have conformed at delivery, and after six months you must show it. Business Companion adds that the choice of whom to pursue is yours, and neither may refuse and direct you to the other.

A paid-for extended warranty is outside section 30, which covers only undertakings given without extra charge. It is a separate contract with its own terms.

When the retailer says no: ADR, and why most traders need not take part

If the retailer refuses, the step before court is alternative dispute resolution, and the law on it changed this year. Chapter 4 of Part 4 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 came into force on 6 April 2026, and paragraph 10 of Schedule 27 revoked the Alternative Dispute Resolution for Consumer Disputes (Competent Authorities and Information) Regulations 2015 on the same day. Anything written about ADR before then describes a regime that no longer exists.

The new chapter regulates the providers: section 293 prohibits anyone from carrying out ADR in a consumer contract dispute unless accredited or exempt, or acting under such a provider's arrangements. What it does not do is make a retailer take part. The one duty it puts on an ordinary trader is in section 308: when communicating the outcome of a complaint, the trader must "inform the consumer about any ADR or other arrangement that is available if the consumer is dissatisfied with the outcome". Subsection (4) confines that to a scheme the trader is already obliged to participate in, by legislation, by the terms of the consumer contract, or by other contractual arrangements to which the trader is party. Schedule 25 names sector schemes such as the Financial Ombudsman scheme and the redress schemes for gas and electricity. General retail does not appear in it.

For a toaster or a sofa, ADR happens only if the retailer has joined a scheme or agrees to use one. Citizens Advice's England edition says to look for a scheme on the seller's website, terms and paperwork and, if there is none, to ask whether the seller would use one. Ask even when you expect a refusal: in Citizens Advice's words, "a judge will usually expect you to have done this". A written refusal goes in the file with everything else.

After that, what remains is a court claim, started inside the six years or the five. The whole sequence: 30 days to reject outright; six months in which the trader carries the proof; years in which you carry it, on a dated file; and a deadline for the claim, which was never a guarantee of the goods.

This describes the law as it stood on 20 September 2026. It is general information rather than advice on your own purchase, and the wording of a guarantee or a contract can change the answer; where the sum at stake is large, take the paperwork to Citizens Advice before starting a claim.

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