“Text form” instead of “written form”: In many cases it is no longer necessary to send a letter to terminate your contract. You should pay attention to a few things.

the essentials in brief

  • Contracts do not have to be terminated by letter, but it is safer.
  • Do not rely on so-called cancellation notices in customer areas of websites.
  • If you are looking for wording for a termination, you can download a sample text from the NRW Consumer Center.

Cell phone contracts, power supplies, singles exchanges, streaming services – for a long time, providers were able to demand that you terminate current contracts in “writing”, i.e. only by letter with a signature. This has no longer been the case since October 1, 2016, reports our cooperation partner checked4you .

The legislature has decided that “text form” is sufficient for termination. This means that you still have to write a text and can't just call and say that you want to cancel. But you can send this text to the provider by email and theoretically even by SMS or messenger message. And he can no longer insist that you send him a signed letter so that your termination becomes effective.

But be careful: This only applies to contracts concluded since October 1, 2016.

There are exceptions to contracts that are notarized (e.g. property purchase, marriage contract), rental contracts and employment contracts: terminations for these still require your own signature. And there are a few sticking points when it comes to quickly terminating other contracts:

  • The company must be able to clearly identify you, so your message should include your address and corresponding customer/contract numbers. Write from an email address or cell phone number that the company knows.
  • However, keep in mind that if the messages are not encrypted, strangers may be able to intercept your messages and read your personal information. You can then compare it to a postcard: anyone who gets their hands on it can easily read the contents. In addition, many email providers such as Google (GMail) grant themselves the right to analyze the content of messages in their data protection declarations
  • If offered, you can also write to the company via a login area or customer center on the company website. Attention: Many companies offer “ cancellation notices ”. But these are not terminations and they do not help you at all to get out of your contract!

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  • If there is a dispute about whether the notice period was adhered to, you must prove that the company received your notice of termination. For letters, this can be done with a return receipt from a registered letter, which is relatively expensive. You can request receipt and read confirmations for emails. However, you cannot rely on the email recipient to send it to you and it is unclear whether such confirmation will help in court. In any case, you should save the message in your outbox and ask the company for confirmation of cancellation, for example with this wording: “Please confirm receipt of the cancellation and the cancellation date within 14 days.”
  • If you want to be absolutely on the safe side when it comes to wording, you can use a sample letter from the NRW Consumer Center . You can also copy the text into your email program and edit it there ;-).
Article image: Shutterstock / From Rawpixel.com
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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )