How much compensation is fair in this case?

bigpat

Hi,

I hope I'm posting this in a suitable forum.

We paid £3000 for fitted wardrobes for our daughter's bedroom. After the initial fitting there were several problems such as uneven joints, sticking drawers, even a bottom drawer that had been installed behind the slide runner so it wouldn't open at all! The firm came back 6 weeks or so later to assess the situation and on two more dates to "fix" things. During that time there were of course repeated phone calls, denials of responsibility, "take it up with head office" and the like.

On their 2nd visit, they damaged the floor by dropping a heavy wardrobe side on it and dragging it along into place. And they completely failed to fix some other problems. You can see various photographs showing the quality of their workmanship. View them full screen if you can and zoom in. Quality craftsmanship, eh?? So we gave up hounding them and referred the case to The Furniture Ombudsman instead.

After various to-ing and fro-ing, the retailers have now upped their initial offer of compensation from £300 to £494. This includes 4 x £50 for days that my wife or I have had to take off work. Apparently £50 per day is the maximum allowed! And the lady from the Ombudsman says that she considers this fair and is therefore recommending it as her "award". And she wants to know within 7 days if we wish to accept, or she will close the case.

So here's my question: Is £494 off a bill of £3000 enough, given the standard of work they've done and the state the wardrobes have been left in? We don't really want them taken apart a third time (emptying the room, moving daughter elsewhere) as we have no confidence that attempt no 3 will be any better than attempts 1 and 2.

So we think we might just live with them as they are and therefore of course we want some money off. How much would be reasonable or would you recommend any other course of action such as Trading Standards?

Gordon_Hose

If 'the lady from the ombudsman' has said this is fair then you either take it or you lose it, I guess.

How do you expect to get any more if the 'furniture ombudsman' has ruled that £495 is a fair offer? Where do you take it if you disagree with the ombudsman?

I'd be careful here if I were you, you could end up with pocket lint.

stebiz

Sounds a fair offer to me although personally I'd have probably just paid what I considered was fair and asked them to take me to small claims court if they weren't happy.

bigpat

Well I don't know if the Ombudsman's offer has to be the be-all and end-all. The retailer we chose are members of their scheme but their website says "...we are unable to enforce our findings on non-members..." so I suppose I'm questioning their legal status. Would I be better dealing with someone who has the legal clout to enforce actual laws rather than a code of practice?

bigpat

Would you consider form the photographs that we should be 86% happy? 86% is an A-grade in most tests/exams. Is this A-grade work?

I wish i could withhold payment but we signed a finance agreement for £2k, interest free over 2 years, (£1k deposit by cheque) so the retailer have had their money up front and we're left paying the direct debit every month.

greyteam1959

I would never have paid for a job like that.........
But it's too late for that now.
I would take the money offered or you could start having to pay out more
money in legal fees & that would just not be worth it.
My opinion only.

Biggles

bigpat wrote: »

Well I don't know if the Ombudsman's offer has to be the be-all and end-all. The retailer we chose are members of their scheme but their website says "...we are unable to enforce our findings on non-members..." so I suppose I'm questioning their legal status.

They don't have a legal status. It isn't actually an 'Ombudsman', it's just an arbitration body, presumably set up by furniture retailers to placate irate customers.

The small claims court would be the way to go next.

browneyedbazzi

bigpat wrote: »

Well I don't know if the Ombudsman's offer has to be the be-all and end-all. The retailer we chose are members of their scheme but their website says "...we are unable to enforce our findings on non-members..." so I suppose I'm questioning their legal status. Would I be better dealing with someone who has the legal clout to enforce actual laws rather than a code of practice?

Ombudsman decisions are not binding/enforceable in the way court judgements are, but if you take a case to court after an ombudsman has reached a decision the court will most likely rule the same as the ombudsman did...essentially they make the ombudsman ruling enforceable. It would be quite unusual for the court to do differently.

The furniture ombudsman is an ombudsman and the civil courts will give regard to their findings.