Does Sale of Goods apply to stuff damaged on delivery?

Euro_Trio_White

Hi.

I bought a pile of stuff from Bathstore a couple of weeks ago, and the mirror on the bathroom cabinet was broken when it was delivered. They won't do anything about it because I didn't report it to them within seven days. The box looked fine. I tried saying "Sale of Goods Act" to them on the phone, but they said the Sale of Goods Act does not apply - only their "Terms and Conditions".

Is that right? If the Sale of Goods Act does apply, who do I report them to?

Update

As suggested in responses here and elsewhere, I wrote to the MD of Bathstore. He sent a nice letter back and has asked one of his senior people to look into the issue. Their public relations manager also phoned me the next day and said that in view of the circumstances, they would replace the damaged item. I picked the replacement up from the local store this morning.

So my own problem is sorted. Many thanks to all who helped.

But: As discussed below, Bathstore's terms and conditions are borderline in terms of legality. Under the Sale of Goods Act, consumers have a right to refund or replacement of defective items, as long as they notify the supplier within a "reasonable" time. "Reasonable" is not specifically defined but courts have consistently regarded four weeks as a minimum, and could easily interpret it as six months and even as much as five years in Scotland, six years elsewhere. The customer services manager at Bathstore said she was exercising flexibility (I think that was the phrase she used) in regard to their terms and conditions. She seemed to think that these over-ride the Sale of Goods Act and she was being generous to me. They don't and she isn't.

TL,DR: I had to kick up a stink to get my legal rights, and even then Bathstore seemed to think they were doing me a favour, so I can't recommend them.

I will write again to the MD to thank him for his intervention and will make these points. I'll update this further if I hear anything more.

bris

Yes the sale of goods act does apply and you are allowed reasonable time to inspect it. Trading standards are the ones to report them to.

You are however treading a fine line on this one as a couple of weeks could be argued as too long for a simple check, so putting it down to breakage after delivery.

Give your local trading standards a call for their advice on this.

Euro_Trio_White

bris wrote: »

Yes the sale of goods act does apply and you are allowed reasonable time to inspect it. Trading standards are the ones to report them to.

You are however treading a fine line on this one as a couple of weeks could be argued as too long for a simple check, so putting it down to breakage after delivery.

Give your local trading standards a call for their advice on this.

Many thanks for this, bris. Good advice! I followed it up.

Apparently Trading Standards are no more in Edinburgh, at least as far as the public are concerned. They have farmed that service out to the Citizens' Advice Bureau. But the chap there was incredibly helpful. He confirmed that the Sale of Goods Act does apply, and that in most instances four weeks is considered a reasonable time to inspect the goods. He gave me a complaint number, and said it would be taken up with Bathstore. I'm not sure whether that is going to help with getting my broken cabinet replaced, but it's progress.

On another thread on this board, I asked how somebody else having similar problems with Bathstore was getting on, and got interesting responses from some knowledgeable people. The thread is titled "Returning damaged item".

Thanks again!

arcon5

They cannot contract out SOGA either. This would be a contravention of the Unfair Contract Terms Act or The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations - or some other unfair terms act anyway.

mo786uk

Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 specifically says consumers cannot lose their main SOGA right.

As long as the trader is not saying you smashed the item up then they should replace it.

I believe the law will be changing next year to set a standard time to reject items so consumers will have more onus on them to check goods as soon as they are purchased.

Euro_Trio_White

Thanks, mo.

Fortunately, the Bathstore people aren't saying that I or my plumber damaged it. I never touched it. Bathstore's carriers put it in my front room. The plumber only carried it a few feet and I was in an adjacent room at the time, so I know he didn't drop it. As soon as he began to open the box and saw glass shards it was clear it was broken. Bathstore are saying they won't replace it simply because it is more than seven days since it was delivered.

I asked someone else who had started a similar thread on this board about problems with Bathstore how he was getting on. With the help of the friendly folk who responded, I've been learning a lot about the Sale of Goods Act and "unfair terms" in contracts as a result. It looks like Bathstore is well in the wrong, as their seven days limit is unreasonable. A clear legal minimum (in the other thread, someone said that a month - ?four weeks, ?30 days - had been proposed) would be very helpful.

I've not got my replacement cabinet yet, but at least I have some ammunition if they continue to stonewall. Thanks again.

Esqui

Euro_Trio_White wrote: »

He confirmed that the Sale of Goods Act does apply, and that in most instances four weeks is considered a reasonable time to inspect the goods.

Just a thought - surely there is no one-size-fits-all, or even one-size-fits-most 'reasonable time'. My interpretation is that it should be enough time to test the product and ensure that it initially conforms to contract. So something like a mobile phone might be a few days, long enough to check that it charges, powers on, the screen is good, to make a call or two and so forth. It would be reasonable to suggest that if you bought a new mobile, you'd be using it almost right away to test it. Conversely, if you buy a pair of skis in a summer sale, the reasonable time could be many months - as most people would agree you'd not get a chance to use them until winter.

With regards to a bathroom cabinet, I can see two conflicting opinions. Firstly, that after delivery, it would take mere seconds to be sure that the cabinet conforms to contract - i.e. to make sure it's not damaged, and the door opens, etc. So 7 days would be more than long enough.

On the other hand, who's likely to buy bathroom cabinets? People who are re-doing their bathroom. And I'm sure bathstore will have experienced it many times, but people buy the equipment they want and wait until they've got it before commencing work. So equally, it's reasonable to assume that someone buying a bathroom cabinet might not open the package for a couple of weeks.

I know this probably hasn't contributed any help to you, but I just wanted to ponder out loud

mo786uk

Its worth bearing in mind the SOGA applies to a £10 cabinet and a £1,000,000 car which is why the wording is quite vague. There is no set time limit.

Basically because the item is delivered faulty you need to reject the item. You cannot reject something if you have accepted it.

This is the relevant part of the SOGA
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1979/54/section/35

There are various circumstances in which you can accept - the most common one is when reasonable time has passed and you have not told the seller you are rejecting. There is no set limit for this and as mentioned by Esqui it is not uncommon for people doing their baths not to open the packaging for a while.

Euro_Trio_White

mo786uk wrote: »

Its worth bearing in mind the SOGA applies to a £10 cabinet and a £1,000,000 car which is why the wording is quite vague. There is no set time limit.

Just for the record, mo, this wasn't a £10 cabinet. £279 less a 20% discount because of the quantity of stuff I bought. That's not the sort of money I can afford to walk away from.

Esqui (and mo) thanks for the contribution. That's exactly the way this issue is talked about in the material on the Fair Trading site and seems to be what was in the politicians' minds when they decided to say "reasonable" instead of setting a specific time.

It seems that four weeks is normally considered a minimum limit on what is "reasonable" for inspection, and the Fair Trading people have stopped other companies from setting a 7-day cutoff.

One thing that makes Bathstore's position unreasonable is that they even tell you to allow seven days from planned delivery to your fitting date in case there are delivery problems. (Apparently, their cutoff date used to be 28 days).

In this case, I bought a heap of stuff which their carrier put in my front room until the plumber came to fit it. It would not have been practicable to open all the boxes, and although I would have spotted this particular problem, as I am not a plumber, I would not have known whether some of the items were the correct ones or whether all the necessary parts were present. So whilst as you say, if the order had been just one cabinet, I could have checked it within a day or two of delivery, the size of the order made checking everything on that timescale unreasonable.

In other words, circumstances do matter.

Euro_Trio_White

Original post updated to reflect that my issue has been resolved.