The Scottish Law Commission believes that consumers north of the border need greater legal protection from unfair contract terms and conditions, reports the BBC.
The Commission, which is tasked with recommending ways to simplify and improve the law, believes that contract law should be simpler and clearer, and has launched a consultation on the matter which will be run jointly with the Law Commission for England and Wales.
Contracts targeted by the review include those for mobile phones and other popular items such as gym memberships which consumers readily enter into without often reading the contract specifics.
The Law Commission for England and Wales and its Scottish counterpart have both made recommendations in this area before, most notably in 2005 when a package of reforms were largely ignored by the Government.
The Scottish Law Commission wants to reduce consumer liability for unexpected charges and also wants key information relating to the contracts to be clearly visible up front, in language which any consumer can understand.
The Scottish Law Commissioner is Professor Hector MacQueen.
"We are proposing a new approach to unfair terms which would assist consumers and traders alike: it would protect consumers from being caught out by unpleasant surprises such as unexpected charges," he told the BBC.
"Secondly by requiring terms relating to price or the main subject matter to be in plain, intelligible language, legible and readily available to the consumer and presented in such a way that the average consumer would be aware of them, it would help to prevent honest traders from losing out to their more unscrupulous counterparts," he added.
The proposals mirror those adopted by the financial industry, which must explain terms and conditions for financial products in simple language.
The consultation invites consumers and traders to give their views on the subject, and will run until 25 October 2012.
Source:
Scottish Law Commission to tackle 'unfair' contract small print (BBC News)
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