Who's fault after boiler leak ?

Hoops2000

There were no leaks at first but on the Sunday after the failure of the o ring it was pouring out. I don't know how long it had been happening but we had a bath full of wet linen which absorbed some of the water

I spent 5 hours on Sunday with a Bissel carpet cleaner trying to dry up the water. we have heating on full and fans blowing air around to dry.

Where we have been able to we have lifted part of the carpets up but have not been able to lift all areas as there is finature on them and no where else to move the furniture. I am expecting mold to appear on the underlay where it cannot dry out.

We have done as much as we can to mitigate the loss without spending money which to be honest we are not flush with at the moment.

I was expecting the supplier to say at some point during the week that they would pay for drying but wasn't until 5 days after they they denied liability.

I would like to take them to small claims court but would like a bit of confidence I can win

shaun_from_Africa

Hoops2000 wrote: »

6.12 OUR LIABILITY
We are liable for death or personal injury caused by Our negligence. We are responsible for any direct loss that is a foreseeable consequence of Our breaching this Contract, Our negligence or Our breach of statutory duty.

As the law (Sale and supply of goods and services act) states that any work carried out by a business must be carried out with "reasonable skill and care", it could be that they failed in their statutory duty.

Even if they argue that they couldn't not have known about the faulty part, you paid for it and they supplied it so the purchase would be covered by the Sale of goods act.
Trading standards have stated on many occasions that consumers have the right to claim for consequential losses following a breech of the SOGA.

DAMAGES
You are entitled to claim damages from the trader to cover your
losses if they were caused as a direct result of the goods being faulty . This is called consequential loss. For example, if your washing machine developed a fault and clothing was torn, you could claim for the cost of the clothing as well as seeking repair, replacement, full or partial refund from the trader.

http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/cgi-bin/shropshire/con1item.cgi?file=*adv0043-1011.txt

shaun_from_Africa

bris wrote: »

Even if you could sue you still have to mitigate the loss, the courts would want to see how you did that. Insurance mitigates this loss so your claim would fail.

Claiming through their insurers wouldn't necessarily mitigate the loss to the company who fitted the part and could actually result in them having to pay out more.

If it was deemed that the company were liable (either for bad workmanship or a faulty part), the OP's insurers would be within their rights to reclaim any money that they paid out.
This money would come from the installation company or that company's insurers.
Apart from a direct monetary claim, they could also charge for the administration involved.

Hoops2000

Thanks for your comments everyone, I am going to write a letter to them over the weekend and refer to go back to them this weekend and refer to the Sale of Goods and services and trading standard website. Hopefully that will make them reconsider.

wealdroam

Hoops2000 wrote: »

Thanks for your comments everyone, I am going to write a letter to them over the weekend and refer to go back to them this weekend and refer to the Sale of Goods and services and trading standard website. Hopefully that will make them reconsider.

Then you might want to refer to The Supply of Goods and Services Act, which I am sure is what Shaun meant to write.

shaun_from_Africa

Well I was close!
I actually called it the "Sale and supply of goods and services act"

Master_Blaster

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

Well I was close!
I actually called it the "Sale and supply of goods and services act"

How dare you, wealdroam would be redundant if we all got it correct.

Hoops2000

Thank you

shaun_from_Africa

Master_Blaster wrote: »

How dare you, wealdroam would be redundant if we all got it correct.

Wealdroam was correct in pointing out my error.
When writing to businesses and quoting legislation, it's always best to get everything 100% spot on. This way the company concerned will be aware that the writer has done some proper research and actually knows what they are writing about.

arcon5

Don't see how making an insurance claim mitigates the losses caused - it's not reducing the cost of rectifying the situation, it's just somebody else paying it.