british gas homecare

brookescm

hi all, is there anyone that can help me. british gas are five months late in servicing my boiler, they have not visited since feb 2007. it clearly states in the contract that i should have a yearly service. when i phoned, they could not find me, although they have taken £18 p.m. by direct debit. they have agreed to visit me next week, surely i can ask for five months payments back, they are in breech of contract. can anyone help please. what do i do to get my payments back.:money:

space_rider

I`ve copied this from their terms and conditions.

5.7 Annual Services
We will normally carry out the Annual Service for gas options at the same time as we carry out the First Service. If we do not carry out a First Service because we have already carried out an Annual Service at the property within the last 12 months, we will normally arrange for your First Service around 12 months from the date we last serviced the system or appliance.
After that, for the gas options, we will carry out an Annual Service around the same time each year where possible. This will depend on out workload and your preference for an appointment. As long as we can get into your home, we will always make sure we check that your system or appliance is safe. You can also call us at any time to arrange or rearrange your Annual Service. For electrical and plumbing options we will aim to carry out a Maintenance Inspection™ once in every continuous two-year period of your agreement. This will depend on our workload and your preference for an appointment.

Notice the words where possible! and depends on our workload.

They are given a reduction for annual services so you wouldn`t think they were that busy.

gingergirl21

Contract law is complicated. Arguably they are in breach and the contract was therefore terminated on the day they should have serviced your boiler and didn't. However, they may argue that the contract was not terminated as not coming to service your boiler was not a "fundamental" breach of the contract. If I were you, I would write to them stating that you believe they breached the contract on the date they were due to service the boiler and this constitutes a fundamental breach of contract as the purpose of the contract is to service your boiler every [ ] . You would therefore like to reclaim the money you have paid since this date and deem the contract to be terminated. Also ask them to stop collecting the direct debits (don't cancel them yourself in case they argue that you are in breach of the contract by not paying). Common sense and morals would suggest that you are in the right and they are in the wrong, and your local trading standards office would no doubt support this.

Ask for a deadline for a response and say that if you have not received a response you will be taking action to reciver the monies due to you.

Joyful

What about "You can also call us at any time to arrange or rearrange your Annual Service"? If I did not hear after a year I would contact them. As you have been covered during this time I would say you were not entitled to your money back.