Repair delays and job card terms under the FCCPA
What Nigeria's FCCPA expects of a workshop when a repair or part is delayed, and which job card or quotation terms the FCCPC says will not hold.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Automotive businesses in Nigeria
A customer in Lagos drops off a car for a gearbox repair and is told it will be ready on Friday. On Thursday the workshop discovers the part has to come from abroad. Nobody calls. On Friday the customer arrives, waits an hour, and is told it could be another two weeks. By the time the car is ready, the relationship is gone, and the customer is quoting the back of the job card at the service adviser: "the workshop is not liable for any delay or damage however caused."
Delays happen in every workshop, especially when parts are imported. What turns a delay into a complaint is usually silence, a surprise on the bill, or small print that tries to make the customer carry every risk. Nigeria's Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act speaks to all three. This article explains what the FCCPC says the Act expects, and how to set up job cards, quotations and invoices that hold up.
Section 130: on time, and prompt notice when it is not
The FCCPC states that section 130 of the FCCPA requires businesses to deliver products and services in a timely manner and, where delay is unavoidable, to notify and update consumers promptly. The FCCPC's page on consumer rights and responsibilities summarises this section alongside the other consumer rights in the Act.
For a workshop, the second half of that sentence is where most problems arise. A delay that could not be avoided is not, in itself, the issue. Failing to tell the customer is. A practical routine:
- Give a realistic completion date at check-in, and write it on the job card.
- The moment a delay becomes likely, such as a part on back order or a second fault found during strip-down, contact the customer.
- Say what has caused the delay, what the new expected date is, and what the customer's options are.
- Update the customer again if the new date slips, rather than waiting for them to call.
- Record each contact on the job file: when, how and what was said.
That record is the workshop's evidence that it kept the customer informed.
Terms that will not hold
Workshop paperwork in Nigeria often carries broad disclaimers, copied from old forms. The FCCPC states that section 129 of the FCCPA makes void and of no effect any notice or agreement that purports to limit, exclude or waive a business's liability for defective performance, fraud, negligence or misrepresentation, or to waive implied obligations.
Read your job card and quotation with that in mind. Wording such as "the workshop accepts no responsibility for loss or damage to vehicles however caused", or "all work is accepted without warranty of any kind", tries to do exactly what the FCCPC describes section 129 as making void. A notice on the wall of the reception area is treated no differently.
Removing those clauses does not leave the workshop exposed to everything. It can still describe, honestly and specifically, what it is and is not doing: for example, that a diagnostic is limited to the fault the customer reported, or that a customer-supplied part is fitted at the customer's request. What it cannot do is use small print to escape responsibility for its own defective work or negligence.
Plain language on the job card and quotation
The FCCPC states that section 114 of the FCCPA requires businesses to provide information about their products and services in plain language that consumers can easily understand. A job card full of abbreviations and a quotation that lists part codes without descriptions fall short of that.
A plain-language job card names the customer and vehicle, describes the complaint in the customer's own words, lists the work authorised, gives the expected completion date, and states how the customer will be told about extra work or delay.
Prices up front, and the same price at payment
The FCCPC states that section 115 of the FCCPA requires businesses to fully disclose material facts, including prices, and that displayed prices must be equivalent to the point-of-payment or cash-out price. For a workshop that means the price quoted and agreed for the work, labour and parts, should be the price the customer meets at the cashier. If extra work is needed, agree its price with the customer before doing it, so that the final bill contains no surprises.
Itemised written records
The FCCPC states that section 118 of the FCCPA requires businesses, except where impracticable, to provide written records of transactions on a consumer's request, itemising the goods or services sold and any applicable taxes. A workshop invoice that reads only "repairs as discussed" with a single amount does not do that. List labour and each part separately, with the tax shown.
Signed job card terms and the invoice in Achekam
Achekam does not write your job card terms; that is for the workshop, ideally with legal advice. It does help you collect agreement to them and produce the itemised record.
Any document, such as the job card terms or a repair quotation prepared as a PDF or composed from text blocks, can be sent for electronic signature with signature and initials fields placed on it, with an expiry and reminders. The signed PDF and a completion certificate are filed back into Documents. That gives the workshop evidence of what the customer agreed to, including the expected date and how changes would be handled.
For the bill itself, a business creates customer invoices as drafts it can change or delete, and issuing one takes the next number in its sequence and posts it to the ledger as debtors, sales and output VAT. The issued invoice can be downloaded as a PDF on the business's letterhead and e-mailed from the invoice, and a failed send is reported as not sent. Put labour and parts on separate lines so the PDF is the itemised record the FCCPC describes.
A checklist for the service desk
- Expected completion date written on the job card.
- No clause that tries to exclude liability for negligence or defective work.
- Plain descriptions of work and parts, not just codes.
- Every price agreed before the work, and extra work agreed before it starts.
- Delays notified promptly, with each contact recorded.
- An itemised invoice with taxes shown.
For selling vehicles rather than repairing them, see selling used and reconditioned cars in Nigeria; for how parts appear on the bill, read parts on workshop invoices.
A customer who is told about a delay before they have to ask is usually a customer who comes back.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
