Cancelling a contract the same way you signed it

This is a short law about symmetry: what was easy to start must be equally easy to end. It applies to contracts of adhesion, the ones you do not negotiate but accept as they come — the gym, the subscription, the recurring service. It cancels no debts or penalties: it regulates only **the channel** through which you cancel and the duty to tell you about it before signing.

Consumers with contracts of adhesion valid in Puerto Rico’s jurisdiction. The law does not define "contract of adhesion" in its text; it uses the term as is. There is a time limit to check before invoking it: Article 5 says this Act shall take effect thirty (30) days after its approval, and that it **shall only apply to contracts agreed after it took effect**. A contract signed before that date is not covered.

• Having a contract of adhesion valid in Puerto Rico’s jurisdiction, agreed after this law took effect.Verified against the official source

• Evidence of how you started the contractual relationship: the email confirmation, the app screen, the contract signed at the store. That is the fact that fixes which channels they must let you cancel through.

1. 1

   Step 1: The rule: you end it the way you started it

   Article 2 says it this way: to promote equitable and fair treatment in every commercial transaction, it is provided that every contract of adhesion valid in the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico may be terminated or dissolved in the same form, mode or manner in which the contractual relationship began. If you subscribed online, you can cancel online. If you signed at the store, there too. And the second paragraph adds what settles the most common case: if the provider of the good or service offers more than one way to start the contractual relationship, it must offer, at minimum, the same ways to end or dissolve it. That is, if they could sell to you by phone, website and in store, all three must also be available to cancel.

2. 2

   Step 2: They must tell you before you sign

   The same article imposes an information duty with an exact moment: it shall be the provider’s obligation to inform the consumer, **before the person signs or accepts the contract**, of the available ways to terminate it. It is not something they can leave for later or bury in fine print afterwards. If they never told you how to cancel before you accepted, that is the breach.

3. 3

   Step 3: A contrary clause is deemed not agreed

   This is the part that gives force to the above without leaving you without service: without affecting the contract’s validity, any clause contrary to what this Article establishes shall be deemed not agreed. Note the two halves. The contract remains valid — it does not fall — but the clause forcing you to cancel only through a channel other than the one you used to contract is treated as unwritten. That is, you need not fight anyone over validity: that clause, by law, does not count.

4. 4

   Step 4: The verification call exception

   The law recognizes a real situation and settles it, and you should know it so as not to confuse a legitimate verification with an obstacle. For contracts of adhesion made through websites or through the use of applications for mobile devices, smartphones or internet-connected electronic devices, the service provider **may** include a telephone procedure to corroborate the end of service and verify the consumer’s identity. Note the two purposes the law assigns that call: corroborating that the service ends and verifying who you are. It is not authorization to redirect you to a retention department or to condition cancellation on your accepting an offer.

5. 5

   Step 5: What this law does not lift off you

   Article 2 ends with a paragraph that heads off the costliest misunderstanding: what this Article provides does not affect, modify or amend the contracts’ extension or duration terms, nor free the consumer from complying with the agreed duration or from the penalties stipulated in the contract for breach. Translated: this law gives you **the channel** to cancel, it does not forgive the term or the penalty. If what you want is a reduction of an early-termination charge on cell, internet or television, that is another law — Act 157-2013, which requires that charge to be prorated — and it has its own guide.

6. 6

   Step 6: Who fines, and how much

   Article 3 is short and splits the forum: non-compliance with Article 2 of this Act constitutes a violation, subject to an administrative fine by the Department of Consumer Affairs of up to five thousand (5,000) dollars per violation, without prejudice to any private cause of action of the contracting parties. And it adds the sector exception: in the case of telecommunications service contracts, the Telecommunications Regulatory Board shall be the entity empowered to issue the fine. Two useful things there: the fine is per violation, and the administrative route does not close the private one.

7. 7

   Step 7: Check the contract’s date

   Article 5 carries a time limitation worth verifying before writing a letter: this Act shall take effect thirty (30) days after its approval, and nevertheless, this Act shall only apply to **contracts agreed after it took effect**. Act 132-2015 was approved in 2015, so in practice it covers contracts agreed from then on; an earlier contract falls outside. If yours was renewed or re-agreed later, that is the date that matters.

Before the Department of Consumer Affairs, which Article 3 empowers to impose the administrative fine of up to five thousand dollars per violation. The exception is written in the same article: in telecommunications service contracts, the Telecommunications Regulatory Board is the entity empowered to issue the fine. The law adds that the administrative fine is without prejudice to any private cause of action of the contracting parties, so the administrative and judicial routes are not mutually exclusive. What we do not publish: the procedure, form or deadlines for filing in either forum, because Act 132-2015 does not regulate them.

• Accepting that you can only cancel through a channel other than the one you used to contract.
• Not keeping evidence of how you started the contractual relationship, which is what establishes your right.
• Believing this law frees you from the early-cancellation penalty: it expressly says it does not.
• Confusing the permitted verification call with a retention call: the law gives it two purposes, corroborating the end of service and verifying your identity.
• Invoking it for a contract agreed before the law took effect, which Article 5 excludes.
• Signing without being told the ways to cancel: informing you beforehand is the company’s obligation.
• Filing a telecommunications contract with DACO: in that sector the fine is issued by the Telecommunications Regulatory Board.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Departamento de Asuntos del Consumidor (DACO)

  DACO

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov

• Department of Consumer Affairs (DACO)

  DACO

  www.daco.pr.gov