Consumer Rights of redress for installed goods

frugalfran

I'd be interested to see if anyone has already posted, or knows of, of knows of any UK case law relating to the European Court of Justice ruling, which I believe is automatically incorporated in UK law (anyone help here?) in the case of rights relating to the replacement of installed faulty goods.
The Ref: is C-65/09 and C-87/09
Very briefly, this judgement gives the consumer the legal right to insist on removal and installation of faulty goods and installation of replacement ones (e.g.in the actual cases: faulty washing machine and laid floor tiles). There are, naturally, caveats about ' proportionality' (which I think means that total cost can't be more than 150% (again, help needed here) of the original cost of the goods.
Here is the conclusion of the judgement:
On those grounds, the Court (First Chamber) hereby rules:
1. Article 3(2) and (3) of Directive 1999/44/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 May 1999 on certain aspects of the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees must be interpreted as meaning that, where consumer goods not in conformity with the contract which were installed in good faith by the consumer in a manner consistent with their nature and purpose, before the defect became apparent, are restored to conformity by way of replacement, the seller is obliged either to remove the goods from where they were installed and to install the replacement goods there or else to bear the cost of that removal and installation of the replacement goods. That obligation on the seller exists regardless of whether he was obliged under the contract of sale to install the consumer goods originally purchased.
2. Article 3(3) of Directive 1999/44 must be interpreted as precluding national legislation from granting the seller the right to refuse to replace goods not in conformity, as the only remedy possible, on the ground that, because of the obligation to remove the goods from where they were installed and to install the replacement goods there, replacement imposes costs on him which are disproportionate with regard to the value that the goods would have if there were no lack of conformity and the significance of the lack of conformity. That provision does not, however, preclude the consumer’s right to reimbursement of the cost of removing the defective goods and of installing the replacement goods from being limited, in such a case, to the payment by the seller of a proportionate amount.

This all happened in June 2011 but people do not seem to have heard of this - does anyone know as it seems to have very profound implications for consumers and retailers: a washing machine manufacturer who does not include installation originally would be responsible for the removal and installation of a faulty machine, likewise any retailer who did not offer installation e.g. central heating boiler retailers, tile retailers.



There is a good summary on some of the major legal companies' web sites (not sure if I can refer to them or not!) so look in the news sections or us the reference of the cases in Google.



Anyone's experience of this would be interesting

frugalfran

Is my comment (above) on the right page, or would it be better elsewhere?

Looksguywalker

frugalfran wrote: »

Is my comment (above) on the right page, or would it be better elsewhere?

Did you see the bit in the title?
DO NOT ASK CONSUMER QUESTIONS HERE.

custardy

Looksguywalker wrote: »

Did you see the bit in the title?
DO NOT ASK CONSUMER QUESTIONS HERE.

Im sure they did
which is why they are discussing(quite an interesting point) regarding consumer rights on installed goods

frugalfran

I had hoped it might be an interesting point - and something I wasn't aware of previously, but ,as I said, if it's in the wrong place, I'm sorry. please tell me where to re-direct it. I thought people might be interested to know of their rights to have a defective item, that they had had installed in good faith, removed (we have to pay for removal of e.g. fridges here), and the replacement installed by the deliverer.

wealdroam

Frugalfran, you would probably be better off starting your own thread on this topic.

I've sent a pm to our board guide Squeaky asking if he'll split this off for you.

Not many of the regulars comment on this thread, probably because not much of interest usually appears.

frugalfran

Thanks, I'll wait and see then what they decide to do. I'm just interested in reactions and any more knowledge about it - and if it helps anyone, well, all the better

squeaky

Hi all,

I've split this post out into a new thread.

CoolHotCold

It is my understanding that Directive 1999/44/EC was not implimented into UK law, as the SoGA provide equal or better terms than the directive.

I also believe that the retailer only has to comply with UK law, not EU law and you cannot take a retailer to court for not following EU law, only the government for not implementing EU law rulings.

unholyangel

Do you understand what the purpose of a directive is? They're not as strict as regulations in that they allow the member states to choose how they are implemented as long as the overall effect is achieved. Directives are binding on member states but not on their citizens. Regulations are binding on both.

The UK (in relation to article 3.3) chose to provide retailers the ability to decide between all remedies.

So theoretically if a replacement was the only remedy possible, then you'd be able to push it. But thats unlikely to happen given that its possible to rescind the contract.

The relevant legislation in the UK is the Sale of Goods Act (SoGA) and it stipulates that the consumer can request one remedy over another but the retailer can refuse if it is disproportionately costly or impossible. Any repair/replacement should be at no cost or significant inconvenience to the customer.

But that is presuming that it is dealt with under SoGA and not under a warranty.

frugalfran

I'm absolutely no expert, just a consumer who spotted something of interest in an article, so I read SOGA and looked at their hub, which is a great place to start.
The Act (SOGA) uses the words - for replacement and repair - (48B2b) - 'bear any necessary costs incurred in doing so (including in particular the cost of any labour, materials or postage)
So I presume this was already in UK law before the Directive.

There is also the clause of 'consequential cost' which could cover e.g. the laying of the tiles as in the case quoted in the ECJ - so the UK could actually be covering that part twice.

I haven't yet found any definition of 'disproportionate.'

I have found three UK legal firms with published articles which seem to say that this judgement has been incorporated into UK law (I'm not sure if I can refer to them here by name or not......)