Let's have a bit of common sense here. 'Contracts override rights in law' is as wrong as 'Rights in law override contracts' (note that I'm not saying your comme

Let's have a bit of common sense here. 'Contracts override rights in law' is as wrong as 'Rights in law override contracts' (note that I'm not saying your comment said or implied that). Clearly, there are some regulations that you can contract out of. Equally clearly, there are some regulations that you can't. It's usually pretty clear which category any particular provision is in. Example from the first category: "Unless a different intention appears from the terms of the contract, stipulations as to time of payment are not of the essence of a contract of sale" - s.10(1) SOGA1979. Example from the second category: "A person cannot by reference to any contract term ... exclude or restrict his liability for death or personal injury resulting from negligence." - s.2(1) UCTA1979 A common pattern is to allow you to contract out of a provision in general, but not when you're dealing with a consumer, e.g. "In a case where the buyer deals as consumer ... subsections (1) to (3) above [which lay out default rules for the passing of risk, but can usually be overridden in the contract] must be ignored and the goods remain at the seller’s risk until they are delivered to the consumer" - SOGA1979 s.20(4). See also: the UTCCR1999, which applies only to consumer contracts and can't be contracted out of. All examples from UK law. IANYAL.