Consumer rights on made-to-order item. Help please!

Harlequin33

Hi all, I'm new here - this is my first post :-)

Any legal eagles or consumer boffins know where we stand with the following situation?

We have ordered curtains and blinds for the house from an interior designer who came to the house and measured up a couple of weeks ago. We paid a 25% deposit at the time. The curtain fitter came yesterday to fit the blinds and curtains that have been made and discovered that the blind for the bedroom wasn't wide enough and said the interior designer must have measured incorrectly. The interior designer has admitted liability and said that her curtain maker isn't back from holiday until 13th August so nothing can be done until after then.

Our thoughts now are that a blind in the bedroom, as well as curtains, is going to look too busy. The room looks fine with just the new curtains.

We haven't paid the remaining 75% of the bill yet in light of the blind being the wrong size, however, does anyone know where we'd stand if we said we no longer wanted the blind?

This would save us about £300 but we don't know if we're obliged to still have it.

Any advice would be great. Thanks!

ThumbRemote

Your best bet is just to ask them if they'll amend the order and you can pay for the work done to date. They may be happy to do that.


Legally - they have admitted they made a mistake, and are willing to put it right. That doesn't mean they've breached the contract in itself. However if the contract stated a date by which they would be installed then they may have breached their end of it. That could give you a get-out clause. But really you don't want to be going to down a legal route with this.

Harlequin33

Thanks, ThumbRemote.

I've just actually received a text from her now saying she's ordered the additional fabric (uh oh) and can I pay for the items I AM happy with.

I have absolutely no qualms in paying for the blinds and curtains that are correct and will do so today, however, I'm just concerned that if I say to her I no longer want the blind re-making as I don't want it at all, she may force me to have it with it being a made-to-order item.

bris

She can do yes, if she has reordered the fabric then it is an expense she will want back.

A simple mistake she is putting right doesn't put her in breach of the contract.

Harlequin33

Thanks, Bris.

To be fair to her she's going out of her way to make things right, I was just wondering if we could back out of having the blind. I feel really bad about doing this so I think I'll just have to stick with having the blind after all.

My only other concern is that instead of remaking the blind completely, I suspect she will stick a panel of fabric on either side to make it the correct width. The curtain fitter guy also confirmed that this is probably what she'd do. I'm worried that this won't look right. I suppose if I'm going to go ahead with the blind I can ask for it to be made again from scratch to the correct measurements rather than the incorrectly sized blind just being bodged to fit?

ThumbRemote

Have you contacted her and said something like: "After thinking about it, we don't really need the blind in the bedroom. Would you be OK if we just paid you for the blinds supplied so far, and then you don't need to redo the bedroom one?"

DigForVictory

It has to be worth asking if she'd skip the single blind, but your consumer rights for a custom item are a lot fewer.

You might want to say that as she's ordered the fabric, you are expecting an exact match to the others without any joins/seams etc thus warning her what standard you are prepared to pay for (even if unwillingly) & giving her a potential partial get-out, but you need to do so *quickly* before the order is cut & shipped.

Best of luck.

keyser666

ThumbRemote wrote: »

Have you contacted her and said something like: "After thinking about it, we don't really need the blind in the bedroom. Would you be OK if we just paid you for the blinds supplied so far, and then you don't need to redo the bedroom one?"

And do it sharpish incase the fabric hasnt been cut.

Harlequin33

Keyser666, ThumbRemote and DigforVictory - thank you all so much.

I've just come off the phone to the lady and used the wording as you suggested and she has said since it was her error I don't have to go ahead with the blind. She even offered to cut up the blind and make cushions out of it for me at no extra cost!

That's just saved me £360!!!!

Thanks again all :-)