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Heat pump or home battery sold at the door: a strong right of withdrawal, a weak prospect of recovery

7 August 2026Juriaan de Vries

Introduction

On 15 May 2025 a homeowner is approached at his front door about a home battery. That same day he signs for € 18,149.00 and transfers the full amount in two instalments, the second by way of a payment link whose instructions were written by hand on an envelope. Four days later he changes his mind and withdraws in writing. Hi Tronic B.V., trading as Batteroo, does not respond and does not repay. On 4 February 2026 the subdistrict court in Breda orders it to repay the entire sum. On 12 May 2026 Hi Tronic is declared bankrupt.

That sequence captures the pattern in this market segment. Consumer law works: in almost every published judgment the consumer prevails, and on almost every point. Whether the sum awarded is ever collected is a separate question, and in practice it tends to be asked only once judgment has been given.

In early August 2026 the Dutch Homeowners Association opened a reporting point for homeowners confronted with aggressive or misleading sales of home batteries, solar panels and heat pumps, following what it describes as hundreds of reports. The methods reported recur almost verbatim in the case law: pressing for a signature during the first telephone call, vague product descriptions, large advance payments, and salespeople presenting themselves as employees of the municipality or the grid operator.

One sales model, four product groups

Heat pumps, home batteries, solar panels and insulation are sold in the same way, and the legal framework draws no distinction between them. Division 6.5.2B DCC on distance contracts and off-premises contracts recognises no product categories. In the published case law, however, the distribution is uneven.

For this article the publicly available civil case law on these product groups was reviewed against the provisions on information duties, withdrawal, doorstep selling and unfair commercial practices.

Home batteries have formed a cluster of eleven judgments since June 2025, spread across the district courts of Central Netherlands, Amsterdam, Zeeland-West-Brabant, Rotterdam and North Holland. Eight of those concern Hi Tronic B.V., trading as Batteroo, Opslagplan, MKB Energieopslag and Batterijnet. The other three concern Solaar B.V., Energreen Almere B.V. and De Zonnepaneel Meester B.V., whose methods correspond on all material points. In the last of those three the same authorised representative initially appeared as in the cluster of eight. This is therefore not a single rogue trader but a method employed by several operators side by side.

Insulation and roofing produce the sharpest rulings on unfair commercial practices, and notably not on withdrawal.

Solar panels mainly generate ex officio review of information duties where the supplier itself seeks payment (ECLI:NL:RBNHO:2023:4501).

Heat pumps generate a substantial body of case law, but almost exclusively on non-conformity, defective installation and noise nuisance. On the way in which a heat pump contract is concluded, none of the publicly available judgments examined contains a ruling. That is a finding about the published case law and not about the market: the reports received by the reporting point do concern heat pumps.

The lag is explicable. With batteries the sales wave came first, driven in part by the abolition of the Dutch net-metering scheme as of 1 January 2027, and batteries are frequently paid for in advance without anything being delivered. The dispute then turns immediately on repayment. With a heat pump an installation more often does follow, after which the dispute presents itself as non-conformity. For the legal question that makes no difference: what has been decided in the battery cases on bespoke goods, immediate performance and cancellation charges applies in full to a heat pump.

The anatomy of the contract

The structure set out below is taken from a quotation with general terms and conditions for a hybrid heat pump with a buffer tank, concluded off-premises in 2026 for an amount in the region of € 18,000 including VAT. Unlike the judgments discussed here, this document is not a public source, so it is reproduced anonymised and in paraphrase. Its individual features are not unusual: each of them recurs in the case law.

Notably, the general terms themselves broadly follow a model text common in the industry, with the usual definitions and a correctly formulated right of withdrawal. The deviations lie in the accompanying text of the quotation and in an annex containing tariffs. Five features are legally significant.

First, the trader is not identified. The quotation states a trade name and a commercial register number, but no legal form and no statutory name. The general terms do mention a private limited company, spelled differently from the trade name used.

Second, the right of withdrawal is excluded on grounds of bespoke manufacture. The accompanying text states that the statutory right of withdrawal does not apply because the solutions are assembled specially for the customer.

Third, the same right is granted elsewhere. The signature page contains a pre-ticked box declaring that fourteen days of reflection remain and that the model form may be used. That form is annexed to the general terms, and those terms grant a full fourteen-day right of withdrawal. Two documents, opposite messages.

Fourth, immediate performance is requested in advance. A second pre-ticked box contains a declaration that the consumer expressly requests performance to begin within fourteen days and is aware that the right of withdrawal thereby lapses. Attached to that box is an annex of cancellation charges: an advisory fee of fifteen hundred to over two thousand euros, reservation and storage costs and a technical survey of several hundred euros each, plus a depreciation of 15% to 30% of the product value.

Fifth, payment is made immediately. The general terms require an advance payment of at least 20% on conclusion, and 50% once the products are available for installation.

The whole forms a closed system. Signature leads to immediate payment. A consumer who changes his mind is first told that no right of withdrawal exists, and if that position proves untenable, that cancellation charges are due that swallow most of the advance payment. As set out below, none of these five features survives scrutiny.

The pre-contractual information duties

For a distance contract or an off-premises contract the trader must provide the information listed in Section 6:230m(1) DCC before the consumer is bound. For doorstep sales Section 6:230t DCC is added: that information must be provided on paper or, with the consumer's consent, on another durable medium, in plain and intelligible language.

The first duty concerns the identity of the trader (Section 6:230m(1)(b), (c) and (d) DCC). In a market where companies change their names, this is no formality. The Amsterdam subdistrict court awarded € 650.00 for costs incurred simply to establish which legal entity the counterparty was: the quotation gave a trade name not recorded in the commercial register, the invoices were issued in a third name, and recordings of telephone conversations had to be used to work out who could be held liable (ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2026:3266). According to the judgments, that same company operated under at least five names.

The second duty concerns the existence of the right of withdrawal (Section 6:230m(1)(h) DCC), together with the conditions, the period, the manner of exercise and the model form. If that is omitted, Section 6:230o(2) DCC extends the reflection period by up to twelve months. The sanction has teeth. In a case concerning a home battery that Energreen Almere B.V. delivered in September 2024, the right of withdrawal invoked on 30 April 2025 was still exercised in time, because the seller had sent the general terms only by way of a link in an email. A link is not a durable medium. Because the information had not been given correctly, Section 6:230s(3) DCC also excluded any liability for depreciation of the already installed device, so that the full purchase price of € 14,144.90 had to be repaid (ECLI:NL:RBMNE:2025:7850). A case against De Zonnepaneel Meester B.V. concerning a battery pack of € 13,249.50 followed the same line (ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2026:7437).

The third duty concerns the costs of withdrawal during performance (Section 6:230m(1)(j) DCC). A trader who fails to give advance notice of those costs cannot charge them afterwards. That follows from Section 6:230s(5) DCC, and in the battery cluster it is repeatedly the independent reason why a set-off defence failed.

These duties are reviewed by the court of its own motion. The district courts apply the Guideline on the Sanction Model for Information Duties (LOVCK, last amended 6 February 2025), which builds on the preliminary rulings of the Supreme Court of 12 November 2021 (ECLI:NL:HR:2021:1677) and 4 October 2024 (ECLI:NL:HR:2024:1355 and ECLI:NL:HR:2024:1366). The model attaches to the number of sufficiently serious breaches a reduction of the principal sum, rising from 20% to 60%. That model comes into play where the trader claims payment, as in the leasing of solar panels, where a breach of the confirmation duty led to annulment of 25% of the principal (ECLI:NL:RBNHO:2023:4501). Where the consumer claims repayment, the case runs along Sections 6:230r and 6:230s DCC.

The right of withdrawal and two escape routes

Section 6:230o(1) DCC allows fourteen days to rescind without giving reasons. Section 6:230r(1) DCC obliges the trader to repay all sums received within fourteen days of receiving that declaration. Two arguments are advanced in the published judgments to escape it. Both fail consistently.

Bespoke manufacture

Section 6:230p(f)(1) DCC excludes the right of withdrawal for goods made to the consumer's specifications, not prefabricated, and produced on the basis of an individual choice. Quotations in this segment routinely state that the offer is bespoke.

That reasoning was rejected in every judgment examined. The product is a prefabricated standard device, and the fact that it must be installed and that the installation is adapted to the situation does not make the goods themselves bespoke (ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2026:3266 and ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2026:4512). What is required is a unique and personalised product, not a choice from standard sizes (ECLI:NL:RBMNE:2026:1369). That a quotation describes itself as "made to measure" is immaterial, and so is the amount of advice the trader claims to have given: what determines the classification of the contract is the manner in which it was concluded, not the advice that preceded it (ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2026:3703). The line predates this cluster: as early as January 2024 a mobility scooter modified at the buyer's request did not amount to bespoke manufacture (ECLI:NL:RBGEL:2024:221). Modifying a standard product is not the same as manufacturing to specification. A heat pump chosen from a catalogue with a standard buffer tank therefore falls outside the exception.

Immediate performance

The second argument runs via Section 6:230p(d) DCC and Section 6:230s(4) DCC: a pre-printed declaration in which the consumer "expressly requests" immediate performance and waives the right of withdrawal. It fails for three independent reasons.

Under Section 6:230p(d) DCC the right of withdrawal lapses only once the service has been fully performed. As long as the device has not been delivered and installed, that condition is not met, however much preparation the trader claims to have carried out (ECLI:NL:RBZWB:2026:683, ECLI:NL:RBMNE:2026:1369, ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2026:3703 and ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2026:7069). A technical survey that was scheduled but never carried out makes no difference (ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2026:7069). Further, a phrase pre-printed by the trader is not an express request by the consumer within the meaning of Section 6:230t(3) DCC, all the more so where it is undisputed that the contract was signed under pressure (ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2026:3266). And under Section 6:230s(5)(a) DCC no compensation whatsoever is owed where the consumer has not been informed of the right of withdrawal. A trader whose quotation states that no right of withdrawal exists has not merely failed to inform, but has given false information.

A cancellation regime restricting cost-free rescission is invalid for the same reason, and whether the consumer agreed to it is immaterial (ECLI:NL:RBMNE:2026:1369). The advance payment itself is equally precarious: Section 6:230t(5) DCC provides that in an off-premises contract, save in the case of Section 6:230s(4) DCC, payment may not be demanded until the reflection period has expired. A clause requiring 20% on signature is therefore contrary to that provision.

Where cancellation charges are specified, they frequently turn out not to exist. In a Dordrecht case Hi Tronic invoked a site visit, a virtual survey and preparatory work, while the contract had been rescinded on the day it was concluded and no visit had ever taken place. It was ordered under Section 21 DCCP to pay the actual legal costs. That case is discussed separately elsewhere on this site. In Utrecht an order against the same company for actual costs of € 3,000.00 followed (ECLI:NL:RBMNE:2026:1369). Such costs orders shift the calculation in claims of a few thousand euros, where the fixed scale would otherwise soon lead to the conclusion that litigation is not worthwhile.

Unfair commercial practices: why the argument often fails

Section 6:193b DCC makes an unfair commercial practice unlawful towards the consumer, and Section 6:193j(3) DCC renders the resulting contract voidable. Section 6:193j(1) DCC places the burden of proving the accuracy of information provided on the trader. It is an attractive basis, which fails strikingly often in the battery cases and succeeds in the insulation cases.

Against Hi Tronic the argument succeeded once. Incorrect information about the existence of the right of withdrawal was held to be a misleading commercial practice, and the statement that the first contract could only be escaped by entering into a second amounted in addition to an aggressive commercial practice (ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2026:3266). Against the same company the argument failed shortly afterwards. It had not been specifically substantiated why the telephone conduct had been unfair, and receiving an unexpected call is not in itself aggressive. Decisive was that although incorrect cancellation terms conflict with consumer law, it was not plausible that those particular inaccuracies had led to signature (ECLI:NL:RBMNE:2026:1369). In a third case the question was left open because the right of withdrawal already carried the claim (ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2026:4512).

That is the explanation. Section 6:193b(2) DCC requires an effect on decision-making: the average consumer must have taken a transactional decision that he would not otherwise have taken. A clause read only after signature cannot have influenced the decision to sign.

The insulation cases show what does suffice. In a case on floor insulation and the injection of cellar walls the contract was partly annulled because the contractor had provided no quotation, demanded one payment after another during the works without giving any insight into the costs, and invoiced only afterwards. That is a misleading omission (Section 6:193d(2) and (3) DCC), and the burden of proving that the information had been provided rested on the contractor. An amount of € 22,687.50 was awarded in full (ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2025:5807). In a roofing case the supplementary contract was annulled because the residents had been placed under pressure: the quotation arrived on 3 October and a decision was required the following day, the roof tiles had already been partly removed, rain was forecast, and absent agreement the roof would be left open and the guarantee on the remaining works would lapse. The price of € 20,255.40 proved, on an independent cost estimate, to be more than two and a half times too high and was reduced to € 8,270.94 (ECLI:NL:RBMNE:2025:5734).

Both cases share two features: a specific, datable act at the moment of decision, and an external yardstick against the price. On this basis it therefore matters more to record the sales script, the urgency created, the capacity the caller claimed and the course of the home visit than to pore over the small print.

The same holds for the blacklist, but without the materiality test. Section 6:193i(b) DCC (ignoring a request to leave the home) and (c) (persistent and unwanted telephone solicitation) are the most obvious in this segment, and the first requires no more than a consistent statement from the resident.

Sustainability claims since 16 July 2026

The Dutch Act implementing the directive on better sustainability information for consumers (Parliamentary Papers 36873, Bulletin of Acts and Decrees 2026, 152), transposing Directive (EU) 2024/825, has substantially expanded Sections 6:193c and 6:193g DCC. By Royal Decree of 9 July 2026 (Bulletin of Acts and Decrees 2026, 204) the Act entered into force on 16 July 2026, with no parts subject to a different date. Five grounds matter for this segment, and they do not all sit in the same place. Four appear on the black list of Section 6:193g DCC and are misleading in all circumstances, and therefore not subject to the materiality test: a generic environmental claim where the trader cannot demonstrate recognised excellent environmental performance (subsection (ac)), an environmental claim covering the whole product while relating to only one aspect (subsection (ad)), a sustainability label not based on a certification scheme (subsection (ab)), and the presentation of legally required standards as a distinguishing feature of the trader's offer (subsection (af)). The fifth is not on that list: a claim about future environmental performance without an externally verified implementation plan is misleading under Section 6:193c(2)(d) DCC. That provision likewise imposes no decision-making requirement in its wording, and Section 6:193b(3) DCC treats a misleading commercial practice as unfair without more, but it lacks the irrebuttable character of the black list. All five go to the heart of how this segment sells: yields, payback periods, subsidies and labels.

One caveat attaches to that date. Article 4(1) of the directive requires transposition by 27 March 2026 and adds: "Member States shall apply those measures from 27 September 2026." The explanatory memorandum proceeded on the same basis. The commencement decree nevertheless brought the Act into force more than two months earlier, and its explanatory note addresses only the departure from the fixed commencement dates policy. For contracts concluded between 16 July and 27 September 2026 it is therefore arguable that the new provisions cannot yet be invoked.

Recovery and attachment

This is the real bottleneck, and the case law demonstrates it. The District Court of Zeeland-West-Brabant declared Hi Tronic B.V. bankrupt on 12 May 2026 and transferred the administration to the District Court of Amsterdam with effect from that same day (ECLI:NL:RBZWB:2026:4255). On 12 May a further judgment ordering payment was given in Amsterdam (ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2026:7069), and on 13 May, the day after the declaration of bankruptcy, another followed from North Holland, concerning a home battery that went uninstalled for six months after payment in full (ECLI:NL:RBNHO:2026:7772). Eight consumers holding judgments declared provisionally enforceable became unsecured creditors.

Between withdrawal and judgment, eight to twelve months elapsed in the cases examined. That is the period in which a company incorporated to collect advance payments can cease to exist. Four starting points therefore merit attention, and they are not equally strong.

The company

A change of name creates no new debtor. Where a company successively operates under three names, it remains the same legal entity with the same commercial register number. The claim and any judgment follow that entity, and the costs of establishing its identity are recoverable (ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2026:3266). That a company was incorporated only recently and has already changed its name twice therefore says nothing about the identity of the debtor, and a great deal about the prospects of recovery.

Attachment

This is the only stage at which speed pays. Leave is granted on petition by the provisional relief judge (Section 700 DCCP) without hearing the other party, and the test is summary. The available object is limited: the bank account whose number is known from the consumer's own payment, and possibly claims against the payment service provider through which the payment links run. Where the account is empty the attachment achieves nothing and the costs have been incurred in vain. The question is therefore one of timing. Attachment before or simultaneously with the writ of summons has value; attachment after a judgment arriving nine months later has almost none.

The director

Two standards come into play. The Beklamel standard concerns the director who enters into an obligation on behalf of the company while knowing, or having reason to understand, that it will not perform and will offer no recourse. The standard from the Supreme Court judgment of 8 December 2006 (Ontvanger/Roelofsen) concerns the director who brings about or permits the company's failure to perform, or frustrates recovery. Both require a serious personal reproach.

How high that threshold lies is illustrated by a judgment of February 2026. Clients had paid € 183,149.98 for a house built from shipping containers which remained unfinished after the contractor's bankruptcy. The court found that the company had breached the mandatory Section 7:767 DCC by invoicing 33% more than the progress of the works justified. The claim against the directors nevertheless failed: it had not been sufficiently specifically pleaded that they knew or ought to have known that the house would not be completed and that no recourse would follow. Having been too optimistic is not seriously reproachable (ECLI:NL:RBROT:2026:1231). The unfair commercial practice route founders on the same point: in a claim by bondholders against the directors of the insolvent sustainability venture Elements Netherlands B.V. the claim failed because it was not plausible that different information would have led to different decisions (ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2025:5584).

Where it does succeed, the key lies with the money. In 2018 directors were held personally liable under the Beklamel standard because they could not explain why the bank account of their companies offered no recourse (ECLI:NL:GHSHE:2018:4056). That indicates the direction: rather than arguing that the director acted carelessly, ask where the advance payments have gone, and keep asking. Where a contractor goes bankrupt during a renovation, that same question runs through two preliminary questions and three hurdles. The starting points in this segment are concrete: collecting advance payments for products not yet ordered, systematically refusing repayment after a valid withdrawal, repeatedly invoicing costs demonstrably not incurred, and operating under changing trade names. A series of published judgments against the same company, containing a finding that statements contrary to the truth were made, constitutes evidence an individual consumer could never have assembled alone. Untested is not the same as hopeless, but in this segment there is as yet no published judgment in which a consumer obtained recovery from a director.

The financier

This is the only route independent of the seller. Where the purchase is financed by credit serving that purpose exclusively and forming a commercial unit with the purchase, there is a linked credit agreement (Section 7:57(1)(n) and (5) DCC). Section 7:67(1) DCC then provides that a consumer who rescinds under Section 6:230o DCC is likewise no longer bound by the credit. Subsections (2) and (3) go further: where the supplier fails to deliver and the consumer does not succeed in obtaining what he is entitled to, those rights may be invoked against the credit provider. It must be examined whether the credit falls within Title 7.2A DCC. Section 7:58(2) DCC excludes, among others, credit secured by mortgage (subsection (a)) and credit granted under a statutory scheme with a general interest objective to a limited public on terms more favourable than the market (subsection (j)). Where financing runs through a public fund, that last exception is the first point to examine; where the credit provider was introduced by the seller, generally not.

Alongside these routes, administrative and collective avenues remain. The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets can impose fines and has issued warnings in this segment, and the National Heat Fund maintains an exclusion list for contractors. Neither yields money for the individual consumer, but both substantiate the pattern on which a claim against the director rests.

One closing observation. For the construction of a dwelling, Section 7:767 DCC limits advance payment as a matter of mandatory law, precisely to prevent the client being left with an irrecoverable claim. For a heat pump or home battery no comparable provision exists. The only brake is Section 6:230t(5) DCC, permitting payment only after the reflection period, and in this segment that brake is systematically ignored.

What this means in practice

For those acting on behalf of a consumer, sequence determines outcome. The withdrawal itself is rarely the difficulty: a written and provable declaration suffices, even where the quotation states that withdrawal is excluded, and the burden of proving timely exercise rests on the consumer (Section 6:230o(5) DCC). Where the information on the right of withdrawal was not given correctly, up to twelve months are added to the fourteen days. What follows involves three things at once. No payment may be demanded while the reflection period runs (Section 6:230t(5) DCC), and cancellation charges are not owed where the information was incorrect (Section 6:230s(5) DCC). The fourteen-day repayment period of Section 6:230r(1) DCC must be notified to the trader and diarised, because statutory interest runs from its expiry. And the conduct of the sale must be recorded while it is fresh: the date and time of the call, how the caller introduced himself, the deadline imposed, the savings calculated. Without that material the unfair commercial practice will not carry, as the battery cluster demonstrates.

The real work comes afterwards. The identity of the counterparty must be verified against the commercial register number on the quotation, together with the incorporation date, name changes and filed annual accounts. Prejudgment attachment must be decided upon before the writ of summons and not after; the account number follows from the consumer's own payment instruction. And it must be established whether financing was involved and whether it constitutes a linked credit agreement, since that is the only route to a potentially solvent counterparty.

For the trader, the same judgments carry a warning. A bespoke-manufacture clause attached to a prefabricated device will not stand, nor will a pre-printed request for immediate performance, and a cancellation tariff based on works never carried out leads to more than dismissal: in two cases an order for actual legal costs followed, in one of them with an express finding under Section 21 DCCP that statements contrary to the truth had been made.

Frequently asked questions

Does the right of withdrawal apply even if the quotation states that the goods are bespoke?

On the published case law to date, yes. A prefabricated heat pump or home battery is not goods made to the consumer's specifications within the meaning of Section 6:230p(f)(1) DCC. That the device is installed and that the installation is adapted to the dwelling concerns the service, not the goods. A quotation describing itself as bespoke changes nothing; in one case that clause was annulled as contrary to consumer law.

How long does the reflection period run if the seller gave no information about the right of withdrawal?

Under Section 6:230o(2) DCC the fourteen-day period is extended until the missing information has been provided in the prescribed manner, subject to a maximum of twelve months. A mere link to general terms in an email does not qualify as a durable medium and therefore does not bring that extension to an end.

May a seller charge cancellation costs after a withdrawal?

Only under strict conditions. The consumer must have expressly requested that performance begin during the reflection period, and must have been informed of those costs in advance. A pre-printed declaration in the quotation does not qualify as such a request. Where the information about the right of withdrawal was incorrect, Section 6:230s(5)(a) DCC excludes any compensation at all.

Cited case law

Supreme Court

Courts of Appeal

District Courts

Juriaan de Vries — lawyer at Prime Law, specialising in corporate and commercial litigation. See the disclaimer.

See also