The visit is going well. You walk the area with the customer, talk about the paving bond, the change in level and where the rainwater tank should go. In the end you sit down at the garden table, the quotation is on the slab, it gets signed. As far as the business is concerned, the job is now on the books — legally, though, with one particularity many firms only learn about when it becomes unpleasant: a contract a consumer signs away from your business premises can be withdrawn. Without giving reasons, without a penalty, and if you have not properly informed them about it, for considerably longer than fourteen days. This is not a niche topic for doorstep selling but the standard case in landscape gardening, because contracts are almost never signed in the office; they are signed where the work is to be done. This article sets out when the right of withdrawal arises, what belongs in the notice, how an early start can be secured, and where a firm's own website carries the process. It is not legal advice: assessing a specific contract belongs in the hands of a lawyer.
Key takeaways
- If a private customer signs the contract in their own garden, at the front door or at a trade fair, it is a contract concluded away from business premises — and that carries a 14-day right of withdrawal (Section 355 BGB).
- The notice must be in text form and must reach the customer before or when the contract is concluded; a verbal remark or half a sentence in the quotation without the model withdrawal form does not satisfy Article 246a EGBGB.
- If the notice is missing or incomplete the period never starts: the right of withdrawal then expires only twelve months and fourteen days after the contract was concluded (Section 356 BGB) — long after handover.
- Anyone wanting to start work before the period ends needs the customer's express request, their confirmation of the consequences and a notice given beforehand; otherwise there is no claim to compensation for value (Section 357a BGB).
- Contracts for the construction of new buildings and for substantial conversions are exempt (Section 312 BGB); garden, paving and maintenance work generally falls outside that exemption, so it rarely helps in landscaping.
Where a right of withdrawal arises in landscaping
The decisive definition sits in Section 312b BGB: a contract concluded away from business premises exists where trader and consumer meet with both physically present at a place that is not the trader's business premises. For landscape gardening that simply means the customer's garden is not business premises. Neither is the kitchen you sit down in after the walk-around. Nor is the trade fair stand, the open day, the parking space in front of the site or the appointment at the neighbour's house. Business premises are your office, your display area, your yard — the place where you permanently carry out your activity.
The rules also cover the case where the consumer makes their offer away from your premises and the contract only comes into being later. So if you collect a signed order sheet at the site visit and send the order confirmation from the office two weeks afterwards, you still have a contract concluded away from business premises. The same applies where the contract follows immediately after the consumer was personally approached in such a place. The idea that the right of withdrawal can be avoided by moving the signature into the office only works if the customer actually comes to you and decides there.
The second group of cases is distance selling under Section 312c BGB: a contract concluded exclusively by means of distance communication, so by telephone, email, messenger or through a form on the website, without the parties ever having met. For maintenance contracts, winter services and smaller repairs that is the normal route. Here too a 14-day right of withdrawal applies. Anyone taking enquiries in a structured way through an enquiry form should therefore think this path through just as carefully as the site visit — the duties are practically identical.
Consumers, not simply clients
The exemptions — and why they rarely help in the garden
There are sector exemptions, and trades regularly overestimate them. The most important sits in Section 312 paragraph 2 number 3 BGB: contracts for the construction of new buildings and for substantial conversions of existing buildings are exempt from the provisions on consumer contracts away from business premises. At first that sounds like a convenient answer for construction work. But a garden is not a building. A terrace, a paved area, a fence, a pond, a rainwater tank, planting and lawn do not fall under this exemption because they neither create a new building nor substantially convert an existing one. Anyone erecting a garage or cutting into a building is in different territory — and there the individual case is worth checking.
The second exemption firms like to invoke is Section 312g paragraph 2 number 1 BGB: no right of withdrawal for contracts for the supply of goods that are not prefabricated and for whose production an individual choice or decision by the consumer is decisive. The argument then runs: every garden is a one-off. The wording, however, is tailored to the supply of goods, not to contracts for work where the labour is the main element. Case law reads this exemption narrowly and as a rule does not apply it to contracts for construction work. Relying on it is therefore risky — and the decision does not belong on the building site anyway, but in a legal review of your own contract template.
That leaves the small-value threshold in Section 312 paragraph 2 number 12 BGB: it applies to contracts concluded away from business premises where the service is performed and paid for immediately at the end of the negotiations and the price does not exceed 40 euros. In landscaping that is almost never the case. Even the small hedge correction you fit in on the way past costs more, and payment is rarely immediate. So do not count on it.
| Situation | Right of withdrawal | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| Order signed at the garden table, private customer | included | Notice in text form before or when signing |
| Order placed by phone or email, private customer | included | Distance selling, same period, same notice |
| Customer comes to the office and signs there | not included | Only if they also decide there, not merely collect |
| Grounds maintenance framework with a property manager | not included | Not a consumer contract, document the classification |
| Substantial conversion work on a building | As a rule no | The boundary is delicate, have the case checked |
| Variation to a running job, agreed on site | Usually yes | Own contract, own notice, own period |
What belongs in the withdrawal notice
The information duties sit in Article 246a EGBGB. Before the consumer makes their contractual declaration they must be informed clearly and comprehensibly about the existence of the right of withdrawal, about the conditions, the period and the procedure for exercising it. That includes your name, your postal address and the contact routes through which withdrawal can be declared. And it includes the model withdrawal form from Annex 2 — it has to be attached even though customers never use it. The notice needs text form: paper, PDF, email text. A verbal remark over coffee does not satisfy the duty because it cannot be evidenced.
For the wording itself there is the statutory model in Annex 1 to Article 246a EGBGB. Anyone adopting it unchanged and completing the drafting instructions correctly is on safe ground. The most common source of error in the trades is shortened wording of one's own: a sentence about withdrawal at the head of the quotation, without the start of the period, without an address, without a form. Such short versions are not proper, and the consequence is not a minor inaccuracy but that the period does not start at all. The second most common source of error is outdated models from old template folders that still cite provisions in a form that no longer exists.
Just as important as the content is evidence of delivery. Have receipt of the notice confirmed separately — with date, signature and a note that one copy stays with the customer. That single line later decides whether you can prove when the information was given. Firms that set the process up cleanly once will find the answers again for prospective customers, for instance in the frequently asked questions on their own website — experience shows people ask about this precisely when they are already unsure.
- A reference to the existence of the right of withdrawal, clear and comprehensible, not buried in the small print
- Conditions, period and procedure for exercising it, including when the period begins
- Name, postal address, telephone number and email address for declaring withdrawal
- Model withdrawal form under Annex 2 to Article 246a EGBGB, attached and completed with your details
- A reference to the duty to pay compensation for value if work starts before the period ends at the customer's request
- Text form observed: printed paper, PDF or email text, not merely a conversation
- Confirmation of receipt with date and signature, one copy stays with the customer
When the period runs — and when it does not
The withdrawal period is 14 days (Section 355 BGB). When it starts depends on what the contract is about. For contracts for services and for work — and in landscaping that is nearly always the case — it starts when the contract is concluded. For contracts for the supply of goods it starts only once the consumer has received the goods. Anyone mixing the two, for example supplying substrate plus installing it, should order the contract so that it is clear which start applies. In case of doubt, the later variant is the more careful assumption.
The decisive rule comes from Section 356 BGB: the period does not begin before the consumer has been properly informed. As long as the notice is missing, incomplete or the form is not attached, nothing runs. Counting follows the general rules on periods: the day the contract is concluded does not count, the period ends at the close of the fourteenth day, and if that end falls on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday it moves to the next working day. After a Friday evening appointment in a garden, that is quickly the Monday after next.
Withdrawal itself needs no reasons and no particular form. An unambiguous declaration is enough — a phone call, a message, a letter. It is in time if it was sent within the period; whether it has reached you does not matter for meeting the deadline. So treat every cancellation in the first two weeks as a possible withdrawal, note the date and time, and confirm receipt briefly in writing. That confirmation is not an admission, it is simply documentation.
Two weeks are planning time, not waiting time
What happens if the notice is missing
The answer sits in Section 356 BGB and is uncomfortably concrete: without proper information the period does not begin, and the right of withdrawal expires only twelve months and fourteen days after the point at which it would otherwise have started. A contract concluded in April is therefore open to withdrawal into May of the following year — the terrace has long been built, handed over and paid for, the planting has grown in, and the contract is still legally open. This is not a theoretical construction but the case that arises in practice when a dispute over a defect escalates and the other side looks for leverage.
The second consequence weighs more heavily than the extended period. A claim to compensation for the value of work already carried out requires under Section 357a BGB that the consumer expressly requested the early start and that they were properly informed about their right of withdrawal beforehand. If the notice is missing, so is the basis for compensation. In the worst case that means you repay amounts received and get nothing for labour, travel and machine time. A missing notice is therefore not a formal slip but a commercial risk in the amount of your own work.
On top of that comes a level that has nothing to do with the individual contract: missing or incorrect withdrawal notices are a classic trigger for complaints under competition law by associations or competitors. That does not hit every business, but it happens, and it costs money for a matter that a correct contract form would have avoided.
The expensive route in fast forward
Starting early at the customer's express request
The practical standard case is not that a customer wants to wait two weeks. It is that work should begin next week because the scaffold is up, the excavator is in the street or the planting season is ending. The law provides a route for that, and it has three parts which have to be present together. First, the consumer must expressly request that you begin performance before the withdrawal period expires. Second, they must confirm that they are aware of the consequence: if they withdraw later, they owe compensation for what has been performed by then. Third, the proper notice must have reached them beforehand — an early start does not cure a missing notice, it presupposes one.
In practice that means a separate field in the contract form, signed on its own, not pre-ticked, not hidden in the general terms, and worded so that the customer understands it without asking. If you are unsure, write it in the customer's first person and put date and signature beside it. A pre-ticked box or a sentence in the body of the quotation does not meet the requirement, because then there is no express request from the customer but a default set by the business.
There is a further-reaching variant: under Section 356 BGB the right of withdrawal for service contracts expires once the service has been performed in full and the trader began performance only after the consumer had given express consent and at the same time confirmed awareness that the right of withdrawal is lost upon full performance. For short assignments — a tree inspection, a maintenance visit, a one-day repair — that is the clean route. For a garden built over several weeks it is of no use, because full performance there falls after the period anyway.
Notice first
The complete withdrawal notice with the model form reaches the customer before or with the contract, in text form, with confirmation of receipt. Without this step the following three are ineffective.
Obtain the express request
The customer declares separately and by signature that performance should begin before the withdrawal period expires. The field sits visibly on the contract sheet, not in the terms.
Have the consequence confirmed
Directly beneath it the customer confirms that in the event of withdrawal they owe compensation for the value of the work performed by then. Both belong on the same sheet with the same date.
Keep the period in the calendar anyway
Contract date plus 14 days is noted. Until then no bespoke items are ordered that cannot be returned, and down payments are not planned in as secure income.
Document the state of the work
Where work starts early, progress in the first two weeks is recorded with dates: photographs, hours, materials. That is the basis if compensation for value ever has to be quantified.
The routine in the business: who hands over what, and when
The real problem is rarely legal, it is organisational. The notice does not fail because it is hard to obtain — it fails because nobody has a form with them at the site visit. The remedy is banal and it works: a folder in the vehicle holding the quotation form, the withdrawal notice, the model withdrawal form and the receipt confirmation together as a set, in duplicate. Anyone doing site visits takes the set along, even on days when in their own estimation nothing will be signed. Those are precisely the days on which something gets signed.
The digital variant is equally valid and often more practical: the quotation goes out by email with the notice as a separate PDF file, and the customer confirms by reply. Text form is observed and the timing documented. What matters is that the notice stays a file of its own rather than disappearing as a paragraph inside the quotation — it should be findable a year later too. If the appointment confirmation is sent automatically from the website anyway, the file can be attached there permanently.
site-visit-folder/
01-quotation-form.pdf services, price, schedule
02-withdrawal-notice.pdf model Annex 1, completed
03-withdrawal-form.pdf model Annex 2, attached
04-receipt-confirmation.pdf date, signature, copy for customer
05-early-start.pdf only if needed, signed separately
after the visit:
contract date + 14 days into the calendar
scan of every sheet into the project folder
no bespoke orders until the period ends or item 05The third building block is the deadline calendar. Enter the contract date plus 14 days, visible to everyone who schedules work. As long as that date is open and no signed early start exists, no bespoke items are ordered, no subcontractors are booked on a binding basis and no down payment is planned in as secure income. The effort comes to a few minutes per order (project experience) — measured against the alternative of unwinding a project that has already been built, it is one of the cheapest precautions in the business.
When a withdrawal actually arrives
Withdrawal ends the contract going forward and obliges both sides to unwind it. Payments received must be returned without undue delay, at the latest within 14 days of the declaration arriving. If you have already worked and the conditions for compensation are met — express request, confirmed awareness, prior notice — then the customer owes compensation for what was performed up to the withdrawal. It is calculated from the agreed total price in proportion to the share performed, not from your internal costing and not from the expense the stoppage causes.
What happens to materials already installed depends on the individual case. Plants, slabs and kerbs that are fixed in place can rarely be taken back sensibly; whether and to what extent removal can be demanded is a question that cannot be answered in the abstract and is in practice often settled by agreement. That is exactly why clean documentation of the state of the work is so valuable: it moves the conversation from assertions to figures and photographs.
For the conversation itself the same principle applies as with any complaint. Take the withdrawal factually, confirm receipt in writing, name the date for the refund and set out the state of the work. In many cases the withdrawal does not reflect a fundamental change of mind but an unresolved question about scope, timing or price. A calm phone call within the period saves more orders than any clause.
A withdrawal in the first two weeks is annoying but manageable. A withdrawal after ten months is expensive — and the only switch between the two cases is a sheet of paper that was in the vehicle at the site visit.
What the website carries in all this
The right of withdrawal is a contract topic, but it begins earlier — with the question of how an order comes about at all. A website describing the path from enquiry to execution takes the spontaneity out of the site visit that otherwise produces contracts without notices. When a process page states that a written quotation follows the visit, that the quotation comes with a withdrawal notice, and that work begins after the period ends or earlier at express request, that is not a legal disclaimer but expectation management. Customers read such descriptions as a sign of order, not of distance.
The second lever is the enquiry form. The more that is settled before the visit — scope, trade, time window, availability — the less often pressure arises at the garden table to sign immediately. How that combines with service pages and references into a workable landscaping website depends on the structure: process, scope of services and contact route belong together and not on three scattered subpages.
The third point concerns upkeep. Legal texts age, contact details change, models get amended. A website whose legal texts and forms are reviewed regularly prevents precisely the case that triggers the extended period: a notice with the wrong address or an outdated reference. What that involves is described under maintenance; which pages a business needs for it is set out under services.
Process page
From the site visit through the written quotation to the start of work, with the right of withdrawal as its own step. Answers questions in advance and makes the contract path traceable.
Enquiry form
Settles scope, trade and time window before the visit. The better prepared the visit, the less often a spontaneous contract is signed without any documents present.
Legal texts
Legal notice, privacy policy and consent in the form follow the same ordering principle as the withdrawal notice: complete, current and easy to find.
Appointment confirmation
The automatic confirmation of a site visit can carry the withdrawal notice as a file. Text form is then observed before anyone sits down at the garden table.
Make periods visible
If the website states that work usually begins two weeks after the order, the period stops being a special case and becomes part of ordinary scheduling.
Maintaining templates
Forms and legal texts are reviewed as regularly as service pages. Outdated models are the second most common cause of defective withdrawal notices.