Supply and install, or a works contract? What warranty you have on the furniture

In short. If your order is a sale with installation, defects must be reported within eight days of discovery and the action is time-barred one year after delivery (articles 1490 and 1495 of the Italian Civil Code). If it is a works contract — appalto — the limits become sixty days and two years (article 1667). Which regime applies is decided by the substance of what is supplied, not by the title of the document — and in both cases the moment that weighs more than the deadlines is the signature with which you accept delivery.

Why the distinction is worth more than a formula

On a hotel project the defect almost never shows at delivery: it shows once the rooms start turning. By then the question is not whether you are entitled to a warranty, but whether you are still in time to rely on it — and the Civil Code limits are surprisingly short: not years, but days from discovery, with a forfeiture that matures in silence.

Sale or works contract? The title of the contract does not decide

Italian law defines appalto as the contract by which one party undertakes to complete a work or a service against payment, organising the means and bearing the risk (article 1655); a sale transfers ownership of a thing against payment of a price. In furniture supply the two obligations almost always coexist: a thing is delivered and work is carried out. Case law therefore applies two tests, worth knowing because a court would use them.

The first is which obligation prevails: where the obligation to do, which characterises a works contract, sits alongside the obligation to give, typical of a sale, the court looks at whether the labour prevails over the material, considering the intention of the parties and the objective sense of the transaction, to establish whether supplying the material is simply a means of producing the work (Italian Court of Cassation, judgment no. 5935 of 12 March 2018). Comparing the value of the materials with that of the labour is not decisive on its own.

The second is ordinary production: if the goods belong to the supplier's ordinary production or trade, the parties are presumed to have intended to transfer a thing, and the same holds for simple adaptations; if the work required produces a result substantially different from the standard product, it falls under appalto.

In your order: thirty catalogue armchairs, delivered and placed in the rooms, look like a sale with installation; a scheme drawn on the mock-up room, with non-standard sizes, redesigned upholstery and fire certification chosen for that end use, looks like a works contract. The name on the document does not move the classification.

What a sale gives you: eight days and one year

In a sale the seller must warrant that the goods are free from defects making them unfit for their intended use or appreciably reducing their value (article 1490). The buyer, however, forfeits the warranty if the defects are not reported within eight days of discovery, unless a different period is agreed or set by law, and the action is in any event time-barred one year after delivery (article 1495). No report is needed if the seller acknowledged or concealed the defect.

One year from delivery is short for furniture that enters service when the hotel opens: if the property opens four months later, eight months of real use are left.

What a works contract gives you: sixty days and two years

Under appalto the contractor warrants the work against non-conformities and defects. The client must report them, on pain of forfeiture, within sixty days of discovery, and the action is time-barred two years from delivery of the work (article 1667). Here too no report is needed if the contractor acknowledged or concealed them. The client may require that they be put right at the contractor's expense, or a proportionate price reduction, with damages where the contractor is at fault; and if they make the work wholly unfit for its purpose, may ask the court to terminate the contract (article 1668).

Two years and sixty days against one year and eight days: on the same supply, that is a different story.

The moment that matters more than the deadlines

One rule outweighs every deadline, and it is played out on site. The contractor's warranty is not owed where the client has accepted the work and the defects were known to the client or were apparent, provided the contractor did not conceal them in bad faith (article 1667, first paragraph). And acceptance arrives more easily than people expect: the client may inspect the work before taking delivery, but if the client does not proceed despite being invited to, or does not communicate the result within a short time, the work is deemed accepted; and if delivery is taken without reservations the work is deemed accepted even though no inspection took place (article 1665).

That is why two signatures should be kept apart: the delivery note for the materials, and the installed work once installation is complete, with the reservations written on it. A handover record with reservations takes five minutes and is worth more than any warranty clause: it is the only thing that stops an apparent defect from becoming an accepted one. Who answers for damage that happens before installation is the subject of the guide on installing furniture on a live site.

And the ten years your architect mentions?

Those belong to article 1669, which concerns buildings and other immovable things intended by their nature to last: if within ten years of completion the work collapses wholly or in part, or presents an evident danger of collapse or serious defects, the contractor is liable, with notice within one year of discovery. It is not the rule for furniture: a sofa, a bed or an armchair is not an immovable work. For panelling, counters or wardrobes fixed to the structure the boundary becomes a design judgement, best made up front.

A hotel is not a consumer

The two-year conformity guarantee you read about everywhere belongs to the Italian Consumer Code, and it protects the consumer: a natural person acting for purposes outside any business, commercial, craft or professional activity carried on (article 3). A company furnishing its own hotel buys in the course of its business, so that regime does not apply and the Civil Code rules above govern instead. As private individuals, buyers would often have more protection than they do as businesses.

Hence the most useful point on this page: between businesses, the warranty that counts is the one you write into the contract. The statutory limits are a floor, not a ceiling, and a longer contractual warranty — with a defined starting point, scope and service terms — costs far less in negotiation than not having one.

The lines to put in the order

Six items worth more than a classification clause:

• the length of the contractual warranty and what it covers: frames, mechanisms, upholstery and coverings have different lives;
• when it starts: delivery, installation or opening. On a hotel that opens months later, this line weighs most;
• what is excluded: normal wear, misuse, third-party work, cleaning with products that are not permitted;
• how service is provided: on site or in the factory, with what response time, and who pays transport and labour;
• two distinct deliveries and two documents: materials and installed work, with reservations in writing;
• the documents that must arrive with the furniture, because a missing certificate is a non-conformity: guide to the documents and guide to the specification.

How we work

We work to order, and that places our contract supplies on the doing side: sizes, upholstery, coverings and fire certification come from the project, not from the catalogue. Prototyping, sampling, production and logistics sit in the same factory in Cantù, with a single point of contact: whoever made the piece answers for a defect, without the hand-off between manufacturer, dealer and installer in which time limits get lost. What is fixed in writing before production is in the guide to the mock-up room; when to order so the dates hold is in the guide to FF&E lead times. On a hotel project the most valuable thing remains time: compliant, certified furniture delivered on schedule means opening on schedule, and a hotel that opens starts invoicing.

Frequently asked questions

How soon must I report a defect in the furniture?

It depends on how the contract is classified: within eight days of discovery for a sale, with the action time-barred one year after delivery (article 1495 of the Italian Civil Code); within sixty days of discovery for a works contract, time-barred two years after delivery of the work (article 1667). In both cases no report is needed if the supplier acknowledged or concealed the defect. When in doubt, use the shorter period: a written notice sent at once costs nothing.

Is my order a sale or a works contract?

The title of the document does not decide it. The test is whether the labour prevails over the material, considering the parties' intention and the objective sense of the transaction, and whether the goods belong to the supplier's ordinary production or require work making them substantially different from the standard product. Catalogue furniture placed in rooms sits closer to a sale; furniture drawn for the project, closer to a works contract.

Does signing the delivery note cost me the warranty?

It can cost you the warranty on apparent defects. Under appalto the work is deemed accepted if the client takes delivery without reservations, even with no inspection (article 1665), and the warranty is not owed for non-conformities and defects that were known or apparent at acceptance (article 1667). Sign two separate documents, one for the materials and one for the installed work, and write your reservations down.

Does hotel furniture carry the ten years of article 1669?

No: that provision concerns buildings and other immovable things intended by their nature to last. Furniture falls under the rules for sale or for appalto. For items fixed to the structure the classification should be assessed in the design.

Talk to us The contract division

This page cites articles 1490, 1495, 1655, 1665, 1667, 1668 and 1669 of the Italian Civil Code, article 3 of the Italian Consumer Code (Legislative Decree 206/2005) and judgment no. 5935 of 12 March 2018 of the Italian Court of Cassation on the tests distinguishing sale from appalto. These rules apply where the contract is governed by Italian law; other laws set other periods. How your particular contract is classified, and which limits apply to your case, remain judgements to be made on the contract and the project documents: this page is not a substitute for legal advice.