Notwithstanding any statutory rights which may accrue to the purchaser, the vendor's liability in respect of any item found to be defective shall be limited to the replacement thereof or, at the vendor's sole discretion, the refund of the purchase price, provided that notification of such defect is received in writing within a period not exceeding thirty days from the date of dispatch, and provided further that the item is returned in a condition substantially equivalent to that in which it was supplied.
In circumstances where the aforementioned notification period has elapsed, no obligation shall subsist on the part of the vendor, save where the defect complained of could not reasonably have been ascertained upon inspection at the time of receipt, in which case the provisions of the preceding paragraph shall apply mutatis mutandis from the date upon which the defect became apparent.