Buying a Franchise in Belgium: Check the Support on Offer

Buying a franchise means running your own business within a network, with support from a franchisor. But ‘ongoing guidance’ tells you little about who will help when your till system fails or your outlet underperforms. Before you buy, investigate what commercial and technical assistance is actually provided. Your decision should rest on specific services, not the scale of the sales presentation.

1. Turn the promise into specific services

Divide the support on offer into help before opening, guidance during the launch period and assistance throughout ongoing operations. This prevents an intensive opening week from being presented as evidence of years of support.

For each stage, ask which tasks the franchisor will carry out and which responsibilities remain yours. Consider help with setting up working procedures, training on the till system, commercial guidance and assistance with operational problems. An adviser who reviews your results does not take over the day-to-day running of your business.

Draw up a simple list of services, specifying for each one:

• what it covers and any limitations;
• the person or department responsible;
• how often it is provided or what triggers it;
• how to request it;
• what is included and any potential additional costs.

Pin down vague terms. Does ‘regular guidance’ mean a scheduled visit to your outlet, an online group meeting or just a newsletter? Does ‘technical support’ mean the franchisor will deal with a fault directly, or simply give you an external supplier’s phone number?

Also ask which support is provided as standard and which only becomes available if your results fall below a certain threshold. You need to know what you can count on without having to get into difficulty first.

2. Check whether the organisation can deliver the help

A clear service list is only useful if there is enough capacity to deliver it. Ask who your designated contact will be, how many outlets they support and who covers their absence. A contact with no backup can be a weak point.

Ask the franchisor to show you how support works, using an anonymised visit report, a sample follow-up plan or a demonstration of the system used to handle support requests. This lets you assess not only what is promised, but also how delivery is organised.

Check availability for urgent problems separately. A shop that opens at weekends may gain little from a technical support team available only during office hours. Ask what counts as urgent and whether a different procedure or charge applies outside normal hours.

Distinguish between an acknowledgement, a substantive response and a resolution. A quick automated email does not mean your outlet will soon be up and running again. Where possible, agree realistic response times and an escalation process, without expecting every problem to be resolved within the same timeframe.

3. Secure the support commitments within Belgium’s legal framework

Belgium has no standalone law governing the entire franchise agreement. However, Title 2 of Book X of the Belgian Code of Economic Law applies to commercial cooperation agreements that meet the statutory definition, including franchise agreements. These rules concern pre-contractual disclosure.

Under Article X.27 of the Code, prospective franchisees must receive the draft agreement and a separate pre-contractual disclosure document at least one month before entering into the agreement. This document, known in Dutch as the PID, contains key contractual provisions and socio-economic information. Use these documents to compare the assistance offered with the obligations ultimately set out in the agreement.

The disclosure requirement does not, in itself, create a universal support package with fixed visit frequencies or guaranteed resolution times. Any assistance that is decisive in your decision to buy should therefore be expressly recorded in the agreement. A sales presentation is not an adequate substitute.

General contract law and the applicable rules on unfair terms in business-to-business contracts also play a role. The European Code of Ethics for Franchising is a form of self-regulation, not legislation. A reference to that code therefore does not replace clear contractual commitments.

Ask a Belgian lawyer to assess whether the support obligations are sufficiently specific and what remedies are available if they are not fulfilled. Do not simply stop making payments if a problem arises: this could undermine your own contractual position.

4. Test the package against real-life scenarios

Before signing, put forward a few realistic scenarios: a till system failure on a Saturday, a disappointing launch period or a recurring problem with putting the franchise’s operating model into practice. In each case, ask who will act, within what timeframe and at what cost.

Then check whether the answer matches the written commitments. Also calculate the cost of visits, travel or external specialists that are not included. ‘Available’ does not mean ‘included’.

Practical conclusion: do not buy a general promise of guidance. Make sure you know in advance what help you will receive, who will provide it, how to request it and what it will cost. This makes support within the franchise network a part of your purchase that you can assess and verify.