(1)
In this Act, except where the context otherwise requires- "bailment" means a delivery of goods or movable personal property by one person to another in trust for the execution of a special object upon or in relation to goods beneficial either to the bailor or bailee or both and upon a contract, express or implied, to perform the trust and carry out the object and either redeliver the goods to the bailor or dispose of the goods in conformity with the purpose of the trust;
"cash price"
means the price at which a creditor would have sold the goods to the buyer for cash on the date of the hire purchase agreement;
"contract of guarantee", in relation to a hire purchase agreement, means a written contract, made at the express or implied request of the hirer, to guarantee the performance of the hirer's obligations under the hire purchase agreement, and "guarantor" shall be construed accordingly;
"currency point"
has the value assigned to it in the Schedule to this Act;
"delivery"
means voluntary transfer of possession from one person to another;
"goods"
includes all chattels, personal, other than things in action and money and all emblements, industrial growing crops and things attached to or forming part of land which are agreed to be severed before sale or under the contract of sale;
"guarantor"
means a person who agrees to perform the hirer's obligations in case the hirer defaults under a hire purchase agreement;
"hire purchase agreement"
means an agreement for the bailment of goods under which the bailee may buy the goods or under which the property in the goods will or may pass to the hirer;
"hire purchase business"
means a business of entering into hire purchase agreements;
"hire purchase price"
means the total sum payable by the hirer under a hire purchase agreement in order to complete the purchase of goods to which the agreement relates, including the cash price, interest, financial charges, and a deposit or other initial payment;
"hirer"
means the person who takes goods from an owner under a hire purchase agreement and includes a person to whom the hirer's rights or liabilities under the agreement have passed by assignment or operation of law;
"interest"
means prime lending rate of interest set by the Bank of Uganda;
"licence"
means a licence issued to carry on hire purchase business under this Act;
"licensed person"
means a person licensed under Part V of this Act to carry on hire purchase business, and includes a company to which the owner's property in the goods or any of the owner's rights or liabilities under the agreement has passed by assignment or by operation of law;
"Minister"
means the Minister responsible for trade;
"owner"
means the person who hires goods to a hirer under a hire purchase agreement, and includes a person to whom the owner's property in the goods or any of the owner's rights or liabilities under the agreement has passed by assignment or operation of law;
"satisfactory quality"
means the state and condition of goods; and the following, among others, are aspects of the quality of goods-
(a)
fitness for all the purposes for which the goods of the kind in question are commonly supplied;
(b)
appearance and finish;
"warranty"
means an agreement with reference to goods which are the subject of a hire purchase agreement, but collateral to the main purpose of the agreement, the breach of which gives a right to a claim for damages, but not to a right to reject the goods and treat the agreement as repudiated.
(2)
Where by virtue of two or more agreements none of which by itself constitutes a hire purchase agreement there is a bailment of goods and either the bailee may buy the goods or the property in them will or may pass to the bailee, the agreements shall be treated for the purposes of this Act as a single agreement made at the time when the last of those agreements is made.
(3)
A reference in this Act to taking possession of goods hired under a hire purchase agreement does not include a reference to the owner taking possession as a result of the hirer voluntarily returning the goods, but includes a reference to the owner taking possession under the authority of an order of a court, and a return of goods after a notice has been served on the hirer under this Act.