new Kitchen woes

rda100

Hello everybody.
Last June we purchased a kitchen from a local store, Greg Stanley Ltd of Enfield, after being recommended it by the manufacturer of the kitchen we where after. We settled on a design and paid our deposit. My partner then changed her mind about the colour of some of the doors, called the kitchen store and asked to change the colour which they agreed.

First thing to go wrong, I was never invoiced for the final payment. Instead the kitchen shop owner added a sentence to an email concerning another subject 1 week before delivery. I missed the email (it wasn't marked Final Invoice or anything) and as a result had to wait an extra week for the kitchen to be delivered.
When it did turn up half the cupboard and drawer fronts where missing. The others where the original colour we had chosen and not the new colour my partner had asked for. They had also changed the layout of the cupboards with out asking me and some of the cupboard doors didn't fit properly and had gaps at the top. Also two of the doors had filler panels to make them fit when I had stated to the kitchen store that I didn't want messy doors. The carcass which was to contain the ovens and microwave came with out any fixtures to do fit the ovens (even though I was ordering the ovens through the same store) and a 'broom' cupboard I had asked for came chock full of shelves including one dowled and glued half way down. We where also supposed to get a set of panels to go between each carcass in a row of tall cupboards which where missing. On top of that we had asked for a handle-less system which in the brochure we where shown featured metal strips that run horizontally. We where delivered vertical strips for the tall set of cupboards. Finally some expensive cupboard hinges for the wall cupboards where missing too.

You can probably guesse I was pretty livid. On calling the kitchen store owner he informed me that 'he had just found out' the missing doors where on an extended delivery (according to the manufacture he knew of this long before he said he did), that the vertical strips where new for 2009 and so we didn't need the panels to go between each cupboard as the strips would instead. I was told to cut some filler panels down to fill the gaps, that all kitchens had filler panels somewhere, that the manufacture for some reason decided that they needed to change the layout of the cupboards (I found out later that he had discussed this with the manufacture before the kitchen was made) and that as far as the doors that where the wrong colour he had no recollection of the conversation he had with my partner.

I was not informed of any of the changes or issues and certainly wasn't asked for permission to make the changes. He's refused to answer my questions as to why I was not consulted or informed of any of the changes or that there would be a delay in the other doors. Nor has he done anything about the wrong coloured doors. We are also, 5 months later, still waiting for the missing hinges which he has had knowledge about for months. He's not apologised for the trouble he's caused and instead insists the problems are due to us using our builder to fit the kitchen. I've been told he's broken the 1982 Supply of Goods and Services act by not supplying what we had agreed on. Unfortunately as we went and installed the kitchen anyway (what was I going to do leave it lying around while I argued with them and then wait for months for a replacement) so I can't do much with that. However, I am wondering if he's broken any other trading regulations? There's also the issue of him not informing me that there was a problem with the doors not fitting. One would think that legally he was obliged to inform me during the design process. As he couldn't get doors to fit the design he wasn't therefore able to fore-fill my design requests and supply what I wanted I would have had the legal right to cancel the order. Anybody know if this is true? Has he by not informing me of the issue of the doors which he knew about and supplying me with something I didn't want, committed fraud in some way? Unfortunately Which Legal services can't help me here and I'm going to have to run the gauntlet of hiring a Solicitor to find out if I have any legal grounds to prosecute him. All we're after is a set of doors that are the correct colour and that fit properly (and the hinges of course).
Any help would greatly be appreciated.
Rob