Land of Leather / Castelan Insurance Claim Rejected

wackojackouk

Hi everyone

We purchased a 2 / 3 seater leather sofa from Land of Leather approximately 4 years ago and we also purchased a 5 year warranty with HomeServe who have now passed this onto Castelan.

We have made a claim recently as the leather has come away from the leather match on the cushions and it was inspected and the surveryor said it shouldn't be a problem. However we received a letter today saying that they will not fix it.

They say that the policy does insure the leather match element of our furniture but that our product containts poorly specified and low quality leather match. Therefore they are unable to continue with our claim as the damage reported consitutes defective specification in materials used which is excluded in the T&C.

I think this is BS. How am I to know what constitutes low quality materials. The sofa was "on sale" at £999 when we purchased it and the warranty cost us another £200 and in effect was worthless.

We are fuming as we just want the cushions fixed/replaced and would really appreciate it if someone could offer some further advice as to how to proceed.

Many thanks

WJUK

visidigi

take it to the furniture ombudsman - I suspect they are playing the if we blame the closed retailer the claimant will give up card.

wackojackouk

Pretty much. I spoke to the Furniture Ombundsman m briefly and she said it would cost £99 for the report but that I should probably follow a complaints procedure first as she was not an expert and wouldn't want us to throw bad money away.

Another point of thought is that the OH paid for it on an old credit card (Mint I think) so technically could we also explore that route as it was on credit?

If anyone has gone through the same thing with Homeserve etc, if you could share any template letters to complain I would very much appreciate it.

Cheers

WJUK

LHenman

wackojackouk wrote: »

Pretty much. I spoke to the Furniture Ombundsman m briefly and she said it would cost £99 for the report but that I should probably follow a complaints procedure first as she was not an expert and wouldn't want us to throw bad money away.

Another point of thought is that the OH paid for it on an old credit card (Mint I think) so technically could we also explore that route as it was on credit?

If anyone has gone through the same thing with Homeserve etc, if you could share any template letters to complain I would very much appreciate it.

Cheers

WJUK

Homeserve fobbed off my claim initially, saying the damage was to the leather match only and not the genuine leather. This was absolute bull and I asked them to send me a copy of my Insurance Certificate because it'd been lost ages ago. It clearly stated that we werer covered for "lifting and peeling of veneer", which was widespread across the sofa, especially on the arms. I complained straight away with a strongly-worded but polite letter, threatening to get Trading Standards involved, which resulted in another visit from a Castelan technician, and an immediate offer of an argos / Harveys credit note for the full amount, or a cash amount of half. Like you, our cover was for five years and was about to run out so it always pays to complain.

tazmania1971

hi we are now in the same boat got our sofa from land of leather and leathermatch is coming away from the leather and got told poor quality leathermatch am now going to send a letter to castelan, in my letter they sent me they say that the leathermatch the policy does insure it but for the same faults as leather so why they are not fixing it i do not know
.....i have been on watchdogs website and filled in a form about this problem hopefully you could do the same
please let me know how you get on many thanks david

kblackmore

Hi
I purchased a leather suite from leather leaders approx 4 years ago with extra warranty with homeserve taken at the same time. I also purchased a leather cleaner and protector kit, made and recommended by homeserve, at the same time costing £40. I have used the kit on 2 occasions, on the second occasion the leather blistered and pealed on the arm of one chair.
I contacted homeserve but were told castelan had taken over the company and all warranties. I was told at first that my claim might be covered under the policy as I should have tried the product in a hidden part of the furniture. When I pointed out that I had used it on the entire suite but only had the pealing happen on 1 armchair I was then told it might be I had used the wrong product(even though it was recommended by leather leaders and homeserve). After pointing that out I was told that I may not be covered as I could have used the product in an incorrect way.
They sent out an assessor who came to my house, rubbed a bit of the polish on the arm before writing a few notes and leaving.
I have just received a letter stating that, surprisingly, I am not covered as they could not detect a defect in the materials or structure of the furniture, even though it has blistered and pealed.

I can't understand how they can do this as the policy cost me £240 and all I get is a thank you but no thank you note in return.
Any help would be appreciated

wackojackouk

Hi guys

Update for you. OH rang the Financial Ombundsman and explained the situation. They said we could write to them but if we wished they would do it on our behalf without going into too much detail saying we were not happy and want it investigated further.

We got a response from Castelan about 2 weeks ago (forgot to update this thread) with their final response.

They are saying the following:-

"The warranty that you hold provides coverage against specific structural defects and staining. Unfortunatley, it does not cover against every eventuality as it is subject to certain restrictions and limitations. The terms and conditions can be found on the reverse of our certificate of insurance and are listed below for your ease of reference:

WHAT IS COVERED

iii Accidental Damage
Leather Uplholstery: a sudden and accidental event resulting in a rip, tear, burn, scratch, puncture or scuff.

iv) Structural Defects: in materials or workmanship first discovered following the expiry of the manufacturers guarantee and resulting in breakage or seperation of frame components, breaking or bending of metal components, recliner, rocker, sleeper and swivel boxes, excessive loss of resiliency of webbing, springs, foam or fibre filled interiors, defective mechanisms, warping, broken zips, broken castors, unstitching of buttons, seperation of seams and splitting, peeling of leather and peeling/lifting of the veneer.

They then go on to say....

The report and digital images from the visit that took place show the leather match was deteriorating on both of your sofa's and that there was no obvious cause for this.

Any defects with the leather or leather match panels cracking, tearing or splitting, regardless of the cause, does not fall within the scope of cover provide by your warranty.

Our recommendation is that this is structural damage whch has occured as a result of a defective specification. Damage of this nature is specifically excluded and can be seen in your policy terms and conditions under this heading:

4 WHAT IS NOT COVERED. Any claim for or resulting from the following will not be valid:

(vi) Structural defects in products that have been manufactured in accordance with a defective design or specification.

I am not very happy obviously and to me this is just a cop out. They are hiding behind the defective specification part which is BS. We purchased the sofa's in good faith and at £1000 + the warranty (alledgedly it was £1999/then £1699ish) in the sale we didn't expect a £1700-£2000 sofa set to have cheap/defective materials and without being an expert on leathers how would we know we were purchasing inferior goods.

Can someone please give me some further advice as to my next steps please (if anyone has a template letter for the next step I would greatly appreciate it).

Many thanks

WJUK

wackojackouk

Any pointers (pleasssssssseeee)

slim1347

wackojackouk wrote: »

Any pointers (pleasssssssseeee)

I will help you,

firstly u quote
We have made a claim recently as the leather has come away from the leather match on the cushions and it was inspected and the surveryor said it shouldn't be a problem. However we received a letter today saying that they will not fix it.

leather has come away from the leathermatch????. i think you are incorrect here. to begin with the product you have purchased consist of maybe 30percent leather and 70percent plastic or PVC so i believe what you mean to say is that the plastic is coming away from the leather. they do not have a surveyor, they employ over 100 furniture technicians as a modern term for an upholsterer.and he would not say this shouldn't be a problem as it is not his decision to make, that is for the claims team that review your policy to decide,

you say
I think this is BS. How am I to know what constitutes low quality materials. The sofa was "on sale" at £999 when we purchased it and the warranty cost us another £200 and in effect was worthless.

i say
low quality materials consist of a material that is readily available to the consumer for peanuts, eg, plastic etc. it does not take much brain power to figure that PVC is a lower quality material to leather hence why your sofa is disintigrating at the PVC section and not from the leather section, this is why you only paid 999 for your sofa,
a good quality sofa that will last you for years and years will not be found for 999 lol, not in these times any how,

warranty cost you 200, how is it worthless? the warranty will cover you for accidental events resulting in a rip tear or burn, can i ask you, did you do the damage some how, or did this damage just apear from use?? 10 times out of 10 its just from use, lets say you weigh 10stone, sit up and down on a thin sheet off plastic say 5-10 times a day for a few years, do you think that plastic will last that long before braking? if it was leather it would take the strain but plastic my friend will not, at the end of the day, you get what you pay for, and you bought a plastic suite.

the warranty will cover most accidental events that occour but to ask them to repair something that brakes due to poor material is like asking your car insurance to buy you new tyers as the rubber is wearing down, it just wont happen.

you say
We are fuming as we just want the cushions fixed/replaced and would really appreciate it if someone could offer some further advice as to how to proceed.
there are plenty of company's that will carry out these repairs, LYN-PLAN for one, they will hapilly remove a cushion cover and replace the damaged PVC at a cost of around 160pound per seat, this will not include the 80-120 cost of removal and refitting off the cover. 3 seats thats a lot of money


so yea, i guess u are stumped. its a saying that i always use, you get what you pay for, and learn from your mistakes. before i buy any item i reaserch as to what the item is, and check reviews etc. you wudent buy a car out off plastic wud u? or maybe you would seen as you thought a plastic sofa was a good idea. stop beeing a whinny and go down to the sofa sales in january and pick up a full leather sofa, make sure you get a receipt that says 100percent leather. any added words like leather/ette or leathermatch or bycast or anything like that, it wont be leather.

happy hunting

wackojackouk

slim1347 wrote: »

I will help you,

firstly u quote
We have made a claim recently as the leather has come away from the leather match on the cushions and it was inspected and the surveryor said it shouldn't be a problem. However we received a letter today saying that they will not fix it.

leather has come away from the leathermatch????. i think you are incorrect here. to begin with the product you have purchased consist of maybe 30percent leather and 70percent plastic or PVC so i believe what you mean to say is that the plastic is coming away from the leather. they do not have a surveyor, they employ over 100 furniture technicians as a modern term for an upholsterer.and he would not say this shouldn't be a problem as it is not his decision to make, that is for the claims team that review your policy to decide,

you say
I think this is BS. How am I to know what constitutes low quality materials. The sofa was "on sale" at £999 when we purchased it and the warranty cost us another £200 and in effect was worthless.

i say
low quality materials consist of a material that is readily available to the consumer for peanuts, eg, plastic etc. it does not take much brain power to figure that PVC is a lower quality material to leather hence why your sofa is disintigrating at the PVC section and not from the leather section, this is why you only paid 999 for your sofa,
a good quality sofa that will last you for years and years will not be found for 999 lol, not in these times any how,

warranty cost you 200, how is it worthless? the warranty will cover you for accidental events resulting in a rip tear or burn, can i ask you, did you do the damage some how, or did this damage just apear from use?? 10 times out of 10 its just from use, lets say you weigh 10stone, sit up and down on a thin sheet off plastic say 5-10 times a day for a few years, do you think that plastic will last that long before braking? if it was leather it would take the strain but plastic my friend will not, at the end of the day, you get what you pay for, and you bought a plastic suite.

the warranty will cover most accidental events that occour but to ask them to repair something that brakes due to poor material is like asking your car insurance to buy you new tyers as the rubber is wearing down, it just wont happen.

you say
We are fuming as we just want the cushions fixed/replaced and would really appreciate it if someone could offer some further advice as to how to proceed.
there are plenty of company's that will carry out these repairs, LYN-PLAN for one, they will hapilly remove a cushion cover and replace the damaged PVC at a cost of around 160pound per seat, this will not include the 80-120 cost of removal and refitting off the cover. 3 seats thats a lot of money


so yea, i guess u are stumped. its a saying that i always use, you get what you pay for, and learn from your mistakes. before i buy any item i reaserch as to what the item is, and check reviews etc. you wudent buy a car out off plastic wud u? or maybe you would seen as you thought a plastic sofa was a good idea. stop beeing a whinny and go down to the sofa sales in january and pick up a full leather sofa, make sure you get a receipt that says 100percent leather. any added words like leather/ette or leathermatch or bycast or anything like that, it wont be leather.

happy hunting

Thanks for your feedback but I disgree with a lot of your comments as do other people regarding Castelan formerly Homeplan regarding their policies. I wasn't aware of their standard BS regarding hiding behind their terms but if you search you'll see they have a bad reputation for it.

In reply to your points...

1). Yes, the furniture technician did say it was common. He said overall the sofa was in good condition and that the leather match and the recliner actions were the most common problems AND he stated it should be resolved quickly and easily. He actually told me the procedure what would happen, including removing the covers, putting on temporary covers and then him coming back to refit the repaired covers (I guess I didn't just dream this).

2). When purchased the sofa was supposedly £1999 down to £1699 and then reduced further and it does not have the feel of a cheap leather sofa. Friends of mine have cheaper sofa's £699 etc which feel a lot cheaper and have not had any problems.

BTW I am not an idiot - "it doesn't take much brain power...." and I don't expect the sofa to remain in exactly the same condition as when I bought it BUT I do NOT expect the leather AND leather match to peel due to use within 5 years (I'm sure there's an EU directive about goods being meant to last 6 years too).

Interesting that they only sell a 5 year guarantee.. Regarding paying for it to be repaired why should I - what are warranties for then? - For all their policies how many ppl do you think claim..... let's just say it's not a lot... we all know that's how they make their money.

3). Can you buy plastic cars?

4). You don't happen to work for Castelan do you? - seeing it's your first post....

bifold

wackojackouk wrote: »

Thanks for your feedback but I disgree with a lot of your comments as do other people regarding Castelan formerly Homeplan regarding their policies. I wasn't aware of their standard BS regarding hiding behind their terms but if you search you'll see they have a bad reputation for it.

In reply to your points...

1). Yes, the furniture technician did say it was common. He said overall the sofa was in good condition and that the leather match and the recliner actions were the most common problems AND he stated it should be resolved quickly and easily. He actually told me the procedure what would happen, including removing the covers, putting on temporary covers and then him coming back to refit the repaired covers (I guess I didn't just dream this).

2). When purchased the sofa was supposedly £1999 down to £1699 and then reduced further and it does not have the feel of a cheap leather sofa. Friends of mine have cheaper sofa's £699 etc which feel a lot cheaper and have not had any problems.

BTW I am not an idiot - "it doesn't take much brain power...." and I don't expect the sofa to remain in exactly the same condition as when I bought it BUT I do NOT expect the leather AND leather match to peel due to use within 5 years (I'm sure there's an EU directive about goods being meant to last 6 years too).

Interesting that they only sell a 5 year guarantee.. Regarding paying for it to be repaired why should I - what are warranties for then? - For all their policies how many ppl do you think claim..... let's just say it's not a lot... we all know that's how they make their money.

3). Can you buy plastic cars?

4). You don't happen to work for Castelan do you?

I think we have a Castelan troll,I think you have every right to expect the warranty to deal with you leather match issue.Land of leather sold these warrantys in good faith,The real problem is the warranty company has lost its income stream hence dodging any claims.
(I am by trade a master upholsterer with over thirty years dealing with upholstered furniture,beds and carpets)