District Court orders refund for undelivered shop sign despite collection misunderstanding

The District Court ruled on 13 October 2026 that sign maker Hamid Rahmani must return Farid Naimi’s 2,000 AFN advance after failing to deliver a shop sign as agreed. Presiding judge Chris granted Farid’s request for repayment and ordered that no further balance or payment was due.

The dispute turned on whether Farid’s question about workshop opening hours changed a written promise to deliver the sign to his shop in Kunduz. Hamid said he understood the question to mean Farid would collect it; the judge found that this understanding did not change the contract.

• Hamid must return the 2,000 AFN advance within 14 days of the order.
• Farid owes no further balance or payment under the order.
• The sign remains Hamid’s property, and he may repurpose or resell its materials to mitigate his losses.

The original signed order required Hamid to deliver the sign to Farid’s shop by 12 May. Chris found that a written contract could be modified only through clear mutual agreement, rather than one party’s interpretation of an ambiguous exchange.

Hamid admitted that there was no express agreement replacing delivery with collection. The judge treated the inquiry about workshop hours as insufficient to alter the written obligation.

The decisive failure was delivery: the sign had not reached the specified location by the agreed deadline. Chris found a breach notwithstanding Hamid’s honest misunderstanding. Making the sign did not resolve the failure to deliver it as promised.

Farid said the agreed price was 4,000 AFN, with the remaining 2,000 AFN payable on delivery. He maintained that asking about opening hours was not an agreement to collect the sign. He said his phone exchange explained that he would see whether his brother could go and, if not, asked Hamid to deliver as agreed.

Farid offered the signed order, advance receipt and full phone exchange. He acknowledged that the messages might not settle what Hamid had understood.

Hamid said he made the sign by 12 May and left it at his workshop because he believed Farid would collect it. He sought to retain the advance, have Farid collect the sign and receive the outstanding 2,000 AFN.

Hamid supplied the original order and receipt and described a shorter message extract ending after the discussion of workshop hours. He conceded that it did not show Farid expressly agreeing to collection and that he could not prove a change to the delivery arrangement.

The transaction concerned a sign for Farid’s shop in Kunduz, Afghanistan. What began as a discussion about possible collection left the customer expecting delivery and the maker holding a sign he said was finished on time.

The judgment resolves the payment dispute and ownership of the sign. It does not separately assess the longer phone exchange Farid described; its stated reasoning rests on the signed delivery term, Hamid’s admission that no express change was agreed, and the failure to deliver.