How much is fair to charge for a cancelled furniture order?

Looksguywalker

DesperateScousewife wrote: »

Does he have a leg to stand on if what visidigi has pointed out is in the t + c's?
I will probably go with him and would like to get my rights in order before I go in. Do they have to show me proof? Can I tell them I will take it further if they refuse?

Remember it's your friend that has rights, they do not have to show you anything and you can't take it further

DesperateScousewife

Thanks...I will leave the talking to him...will just advise him.

arcon5

If they accept the cancellation i'd consider £50 to be reasonable.

I'd get them to accept the cancellation first though then dispute it later in case they decide not to accept the cancellation

Equaliser123

Note - they don't have to accept the cancellation and could, in theory, hold the purchaser to the contract.

DesperateScousewife

molerat wrote: »

He has no rights to cancel if bought in a real shop. They can charge for any costs they have incurred. Their "losses" should be no more than about £50 in "admin" costs. At £600 they are having a laugh.

Is the salesmans commission taken into 'costs' consideration?

bris

This old chestnut again that everybody gets wrong. They may indeed be able to charge £600 for loss of profit. But I'm not getting into it again.

somethingcorporate

bris wrote: »

This old chestnut again that everybody gets wrong. They may indeed be able to charge £600 for loss of profit. But I'm not getting into it again.

I think you will find it is you that is wrong, Bris. Did you read my FAQ post?

They cannot charge for loss of profit if they still have the item to sell.

They can only "charge" genuine costs. See the extract and more notably the bolded sentence below.

Edit: the extract from the Oft guidance that the FAQ post links to:

Paragraph 4.5:
"A way to improve the fairness of such a term is to ensure that it does not
go beyond the ordinary legal position. Where cancellation is the fault of the
consumer, the business is entitled to hold back from any refund of
prepayments what is likely to be reasonably needed to cover his net costs
or the net loss of profit resulting directly from the default.18 There is no
entitlement to any sum that could reasonably be saved by, for example,
finding another customer."

Edit2: They could theoretically charge the loss of profit if they have to reduce the price to find a new buyer but they have the responsibility under the contract to mitigate their losses, they cannot just knock 50% off and charge the difference in profit to the original person breaking the contract as would not likely be "reasonable" behaviour, but this would be entirely situation dependent.

CKhalvashi

If you make a mistake

If you’ve made a mistake with your order or on delivery you feel it is not right for you, let us know. We will always do our best to help, we understand that furniture is a big commitment and if you have made a mistake we appreciate that these things happen.
If you realise your mistake on the day of the delivery, for a small fee of £129.00, to cover the cost of collection and redelivery, we can take back your furniture and you can start your journey again in store.

I still think that £50 + VAT should be the maximum.


CK

InsideInsurance

Of cause there was probably just the salesmans word that the item was actually in stock and just had to be delivered.... I am sure I am not the only one that has been given wildly optimistic delivery information etc by a furniture salesman in an attempt to seal the deal.

All things being equal and what was said was honest etc then an admin fee would seem reasonable. If the item wasnt actually in stock and in fact they had ordered the item from their supplier then you move into a different ball park because they will have incurred costs beyond pure administration.

Hintza

I don't see £50 being reasonable on a £2k order. I would have thought 10% or perhaps slightly more.