bob ronai

Meet our writer. Written by our resident freight forwarding and shipping expert. Bob Ronai→

Delivery of the goods is “not unloaded” by the seller at the destination place.

It would be unusual that delivery by road would be to a terminal for the buyer to then collect. Instead, it is almost invariably to the buyer’s premises. Import clearance, if any, occurs at the border while the goods remain on the truck.

The seller contracts for carriage on the truck all the way to the buyer’s premises where the buyer is to unload the truck. What if the buyer has a delay in import clearance so the truck must park up at the border and wait, or the buyer takes longer than the trucker’s free time for unloading?

Ideally these possibilities should already be dealt with in the sales contract.

If the goods are just a couple of smaller pieces it would be quite usual for the truck driver to remove them from his truck and hand them to the buyer. Or maybe the truck has its own unloading equipment operated by the driver. Then it is not DAP, it becomes DPU.

Reader’s comment:

We had this issue with the project last year, and the seller didn’t deal with this in the sales contract. Furthermore the buyer didn’t even have the crane available on site and we had some significant heavylifts… 50000 eur extra expenses for the whole project just for the demurrage of the trucks…

Bob’s response:

Thank you for your example. Yes, just because the goods are delivered DAP, the costs for the seller don’t always stop as this case demonstrates.

Reader’s response:

Thanks for sharing and clearing this point where truck has its own unloading equipment operated by the driver. Then it is not DAP, it becomes DPU. noted this point.

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