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Last week I signed a contract for a gym membership with the wrong location. I'm not really aware of how contract signing is handled in other countries, but here in Germany it always is a part of it. Out of sheer habit I wrote the postcode and name of my hometown instead of the location where I signed the contract. The other party, and me, did not notice at that point. I just noticed while filing it at home.

Is such a contract correct/legal? Should I get a new contract and/or tell the other party about my mistake? The contract itself is totally fine, it's not like I gave a wrong address or something. Just the location of signition is wrong.

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    Out of interest, was there a field for postcode next to the signature? If yes, I never saw this before. It’s usually only date/location/signature (and more and more forms omit the location field now).
    – unor
    Mar 25, 2019 at 18:12
  • @unor Well, as said here in Germany writing the date and location where the conctract was signed is pretty much a norm. I definitly have seen both, with and without the postcode. I guess it depends on the party setting up the contract.
    – Suimon
    Mar 25, 2019 at 18:20

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The date and location of the signature merely documents when/where the signature was made, and doesn't have a lot of legal significance for ordinary contracts. This information is probably only useful if you need to argue that you could't have signed the contract because you weren't in that town on that day.

Despite this small lapse your contract is perfectly valid, in particular you are required to make any payments that are part of this contract. It doesn't make sense to get this corrected. However, if any actual information (for example, you address) changed, then you should notify the gym to update the information.

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  • Are you sure this is true in Germany? (It certainly would be in England and Wales, but Germany is ... not the same.)
    – Martin Bonner supports Monica
    Mar 25, 2019 at 17:28
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    @MartinBonner No, I am not sure but reasonably confident. The BGB contains no requirement to add date/location for the Schriftform, just that the contractual parties sign themselves (§126). The Beurkundungsgesetz does have such a requirement in §9(2), but that only applies to notarized documents.
    – amon
    Mar 25, 2019 at 18:29
  • Ah good. The fact you can say "BGB" makes me a lot more confident!
    – Martin Bonner supports Monica
    Mar 26, 2019 at 8:15
  • On top of that, a gym membership doesn't even have to be in writing.
    – erebus
    Apr 1, 2020 at 21:26

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