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I'm going to a local gym in my town for about half a year. At the time I signed the contract I didn't have a car and bus or train is terrible where I live, so I had no other gym to choose from. The contract states terms of 1 year with a 1 month notice period to terminate it.

Now, after these 6 months of training there and educating myself over a lot of weightlifting topics, I started to notice a lot of flaws in the gym. For example, I'd love to do Squats or Military Presses. Unfortunatly the gym doesn't have such a rack to take the barbell out and picking a heavy loaded barbell off the ground is pretty hard (even impossible when trying to lay the bar across my neck to squat with it). Also there are some machines I'd like to use, which are also missing.

I read about extraordinary termination when the gym removes a machine (or other equipment) or does fail to replace broken ones, so I came to this question:

Am I able to extraordinary terminate this contract due to missing equipment, although I technically should have know that it was missing before I signed?

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  • I'm assuming that the contract doesn't have any kind of clause which says that they must provide certain types of equipment, so I don't think that you wanting something the gym did not provide (especially since it wasn't there to begin with) is cause for termination. If they had it when you signed up and subsequently removed it, that may be cause, but they never had it in the first place. What country is this? – Ron Beyer Aug 27 '18 at 14:06
  • @RonBeyer I'm sorry, the country is Germany. I'll include the right tag to the question aswell. – Suimon Aug 28 '18 at 6:02
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Am I able to extraordinary terminate this contract due to missing equipment, although I technically should have know that it was missing before I signed?

No (I'll assume that your jurisdiction is somewhere in the U.S., although many other countries apply contract law similarly).

First, your statement that technically you should have known about the flaws [before signing] reflects that the contract does not misrepresent what equipment the gym has.

Second, using the gym for six months evidences your satisfaction with the contractual relation. The parties' conduct reinforces the validity of a contract, whence a party's subsequent change of mind does not entitle him or her to breach that contract.

You might be entitled to terminate the contract prematurely if (1) the flaws pose a realistic risk of injury, and (2) the gym disregards any [reasonable] safety concerns you report to the gym. In this regard, [gym's] gross negligence might suffice insofar as it touches on the covenant of fair dealing that is presumed in contract law.

You may want to discuss with the gym your concern about the barbell/rack issue. However, it would fall short of entitlement-to-breach if you readily know --or should have known-- that maneuvering with the barbell(s) off the ground is hazardous given the progress you have attained so far.

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  • Thanks for the detailed advice. There fortunatly (unfortunatly in my case I guess?) aren't any risks of injuries. Just the lack of equipment and thus inability to fullfill certain exercises, which pretty much are considered basic among 99% of gym-athletes. I already discussed this topic with the owner, but since there is a leg press and a squat machine, he sees no interest in a squat rack. I'm not able to perform the squat machine, and the leg press is really suboptimal... – Suimon Aug 28 '18 at 6:07

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