Given the new year sales, I’d like to remind you about an important piece of consumer legislation which shops often conveniently avoid.

Imagine you’ve bought a television or a laptop and it breaks down or develops a fault and the warranty has expired recently. Often you will go into the shop where it was purchased and staff will say you have to contact the manufacturer as the warranty is no longer in force. This is not true.

Under the Sale of Goods Act ‘if a product develops a fault before it would reasonably be expected to do so’ then a retailer is still liable even if a warranty has expired.

A recent Which? survey found that three companies provided poor information – Amazon, John Lewis and Argos, while others, such as Currys and Apple, performed better.