The Court granted the defense of limitation period (caducidade) to claim the right according to following considerations:
- The community legislative acts have immediate application in the Portuguese legal system (art. 8 Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, CRP), and so is the application to the situations for which the domestic legal order set a shorter period to exercise the right to react to a notification of defect in movable assets acquired by the consumers, as stated in the Directive;
- The rules of DL 67/2003 of 8 April 2003 are applicable to this case. DL 67/2003, article 5, para 4 explicitly sets the exercise of a right of notification in regard to real property (immovables), so that the right of reaction prescribes in the period of six months for the situations of defect on both movable or immovables.
- By leaving the period of time untouched, the transposition act set a shorter time than that established by Directive 1999/44/EC, which established a minimum of two years for the reaction right for the interested part to claim to the court repair, replacement, reduction in price or rescission of the sales contract of a corporeal (tangible) asset.
- But the Directive regulated only the situations in regard to corporeal movable assets, while the Portuguese legislator dealt with both movables and immovables. However, a subsequent amendment extending the period of time as set by art. 5-A of DL 84/2008 of 21 May 2007, as a corrective disposition, only applies to movables and not to immovables.