New DFS Sofa won't fit in my house! Consumer rights?

afronaut81

Hi there, I'm wondering if anyone can help me in this.

We ordered 2 new DFS sofas a month ago. We have a small house so we deliberately focussed on size. We went into DFS (Taunton) and spoke to the sales staff about a specific sofa (Heath model). The sales reps reassured us and even said that the sofa's arms could be detached in order to fit into small properties. This gave us the confidence to buy it (although we actually ordered it through their website/phone line)

Today the delivery van came but they could not get it into our living room. I asked the deliveryman to take off the arms in order to fit it in. At which point he said "This model doesn't have removable arms". Needless to say they weren't able to complete the delivery and took both sofas back with them.

I would like to get DFS to give me a full refund but I fear they are going to drag their heels on this. The sofa is made to order to specific customer options (colour, cushion filling) and so I'm not sure if this excludes it from the rules on distance selling. However it certainly doesn't come "As Described" by their sales team.

When I called the store to complain he was also rather unhelpful and said that "our team have been selling this sofa for two years and would never have described it as having removable arms". This is definitely false as we never looked at any other sofa so that comment was definitely directed at this model.

Can any one help on this

Thanks

bod1467

Unfortunately whatever the salesman said is irrelevant as you didn't buy from them. (Well, you bought from their company, but not from THEM, so you have no consumer rights with them. Anything their salesman said did not form any part of the contract you DID engage).

Is it not possible to remove the living room window to get the sofas in?

scubaangel

When I ordered a DFS sofa I also discussed removable arms for the same reasons, usually it's an option on the order (and if I remember right an additional £50 on top of the standard price), so even if the sales man said it could come with removable arms the fact that you went away and ordered it without specifying removable arms is on you.

That said I had other issues with getting it in to my flat and they were willing eventually to let me reorder a different model of the same design which would fit - 3 seater with removable arms instead of a 2 seater which didnt, and just pay the difference.

ETA I've had a look at the website and the sofa's which come with a choice of fixed or removable arms have both options listed, the Heath doesn't have the two versions listed so if the sales person said otherwise they were wrong but you still have the problem of not ordering with them in store.