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Caveat emptor is
Latin for "
let the buyer beware".
Generally Caveat Emptor was the property law doctrine that controlled the sale of real property after the date of 'closing'.
Explanation
Under the doctrine of Caveat Emptor, the buyer could not recover from the seller for defects on the property that rendered the property unfit for ordinary purposes. The only exception was if the seller actively concealed patent defects. The modern trend, however, is one of the Implied Warranty of Fitness that applies only to the sale of new residential housing by a builder-seller and the rule of Caveat Emptor applies to all other sale situations (i.e. homeowner to buyer)
Before
statutory law, the buyer had no
warranty of the quality of goods. In many jurisdictions, the law now requires that goods must be of "merchantable quality". However, this
implied warranty can be difficult to enforce, and may not apply to all products. Hence, buyers are still advised to be cautious.
In addition to the quality of the merchandise, this phrase also applies to the return policy. In most jurisdictions, there is no legal requirement for the vendor to provide a refund or exchange. In many cases, the vendor will not provide a refund but will provide a credit. In the case of
software,
movies and other
copyrighted material many vendors will only do a direct exchange for another copy of the exact same title. Most stores require
proof of purchase and impose time limits on exchanges or refunds; however, some larger
chain stores will do exchanges or refunds at any time with or without proof of purchase.
This phrase has given rise to many informal variations, such as
caveat reader (properly expressed in Latin as
caveat lector).
Caveat emptor has also been used by software documentors to entitle their collection of software functioning oddities or stumbling blocks in usage.