Chanucah is over and you may have a drawer full of tat you want to return.

In my last column, I wrote about your return rights but, with the January sales now upon us, here are a couple of points that you must understand when taking things back.

The first, which may get confusing, is: remember that you don't actually have any legal rights just to take store goods back due to items being the "wrong colour" or "wrong size". It must actually be faulty for it to be returned.

Thankfully, many stores do allow no-fault returns but then their rules are the ones you have to follow, so if they say "you need a receipt" or "we can only give a credit note", then they are right. If it is faulty, then forget their rules, as the law says return it quickly enough and you are entitled to a full refund.

If you have been given a gift, be aware that, even if it is faulty, legally, only the person who bought the gift has rights, so you can't exchange it. If you have a gift receipt or the buyer wrote that it was a gift on the shop's copy of the receipt, the rights are transferred - but if you don't have that and shops work to these rules then you are likely to need the buyer to return it for you.