The deposit is a form of guarantee for debt, and it is also one of the forms of liability for breach of contract in contract law. With regard to the deposit penalty, article 586 of the Civil Code stipulates that the parties may agree that one party shall pay a deposit to the other party as security for the creditor's rights, and the deposit contract shall be established when the deposit is actually paid. The amount of the deposit shall be agreed upon by the parties;But,It shall not exceed 20% of the amount of the subject matter of the main contract, and the excess part shall not produce the effect of the deposit.
In addition, Article 587 of the Civil Code stipulates that if the debtor performs the debt, the deposit shall be offset against the price or recovered. If the party paying the deposit fails to perform its debts or the performance of its debts does not comply with the regulations, resulting in the inability to achieve the purpose of the contract, it shall not have the right to demand the return of the deposit;If the party receiving the deposit fails to perform its debts or the performance of its debts does not conform to the agreement, resulting in the inability to achieve the purpose of the contract, the deposit shall be returned twice.
In this case, the plaintiff signed an "Appointment Contract" with the defendant for the house in question, and paid a deposit of 22,800 yuan to the defendant by card. Later, the plaintiff proposed that the defendant should not renovate the property due to its own reasons and requested the defendant to return the deposit, but the defendant refused, so it filed a lawsuit. InRen Jie, a lawyer at Zhonghengxin Law FirmWith the help of the help,The plaintiff won the case and ordered the defendant to return the excess deposit to the plaintiff within a time limit.
CourtsReferee Points
The Court is of the opinion thatArticle 586 of the Civil Code of the People's Republic of China stipulates that the parties may agree that one party shall pay a deposit to the other party as security for the creditor's rights. The deposit contract is concluded when the deposit is actually paid. The amount of the deposit shall be agreed upon by the parties;However, it shall not exceed 20% of the amount of the subject matter of the main contract, and the excess part shall not have the effect of a deposit. In this case, the contract amount of the Reservation Contract signed by the plaintiff and the defendant was 76,000 yuan, and the deposit agreed by the two parties exceeded 20% of the contract amountTherefore, the part of the deposit paid by the plaintiff in excess of 15,200 yuan does not have the effect of the deposit, but the part exceeding the deposit of 7,600 yuan should be refunded by the defendant. The defendant argued that the liquidated damages agreed by the two parties were RMB 22,800, but the defendant did not provide evidence to prove that the deposit paid by the plaintiff was insufficient to make up for the losses caused to the defendant due to the plaintiff's breach of contract, and even if the non-breaching party chose to apply the liquidated damages clause, the parties to the contract could still request the people's court to appropriately reduce the liquidated damages according to the circumstances of the breach. To sum up,The defendant's defense that the 7,600 yuan was not refunded was factual and legally insufficient, so this court did not accept it.
Court decisionResults
In accordance with the provisions of Articles 585, 586, 587 and 588 of the Civil Code of the People's Republic of China and Article 67 of the Civil Procedure Law of the People's Republic of ChinaThe verdict is as follows:The defendant Company A shall return 7,600 yuan to the plaintiff Ji within 15 days from the effective date of this judgment.