Legal advice - kitchen worktops

letdowncrush

Hi

First time poster - not sure if this is in the right place but here goes!

We got a company in to fit some worktops in our kitchen a couple weeks ago and it's just been a real nightmare.

The TLDR version:

They came out to finish the job this week and the end result is still not quite right - one of the upstands is made out of two pieces rather than one and has an unsightly join, this shouldn't really be the case and we're very unhappy. We still owe them 1/3 and don't really want to pay up until they rectify it even though they're chasing us hard for it (several calls yesterday).

What concerns me is that towards the end the fitters asked my other half to sign something and after she inspected everything she felt too intimidated (there were 5/6 of them there) to do anything about it. She said that the paper was just a replicate of the quote so there was no wording associated with it to say we're happy or whatever. She wasn't given a copy.

Are we within our rights to withhold payment here until it's sorted to our satisfaction or if it came down to it (in court) would we lose?

The longer version:

We made several trips to their showroom before finally deciding to go with these guys and agreeing what it is we want and they gave us a quote with our requirements listed out. Their process (as is the norm from our observations) is that they come out to template / measure up your kitchen, go off and fabricate the worktops and then come back to fit.

The problems started when they switched up of the time of the templating on the day - my other half had taken time off work to be at the house and meet them but couldn't stay for the new time. We figured that seeing as though we'd agreed everything in the showroom in detail however, it wasn't an issue - our builders let them in.

When fitting came, same deal... our builders let them in and they went ahead and did their thing. When we got back it was just an absolute mess, it was atrociously fitted, they scratched our floor, some pieces were still missing (e.g. upstands, legs) and they'd gotten our requirements wrong.

When we phoned them up to complain their excuse (in terms of the changed requirements) was that our builders had signed something when they came out to template on requirements that differed from the quote! We spoke to our builder and he just said that they just shoved something in front of him to sign before they left and he signed it thinking it was like signing for a delivery (though obv he still shouldn't have done that!).

So we've had their people in the office put the phone down on us, agreeing to sort everything out no problems and then reneging on the offer, the managing director issuing thinly veiled threats about their bulletproof legal standpoint and just general absurd customer service. Ultimately the 'compromise' proposed was we would have to pay an additional 500 to revert to the requirements we agreed in the showroom and get everything fixed.... and that was them doing us a massive favour. We decided to back down and just accept what we had but for them to come out and fit everything properly and finish the job without having to pay any more money.

As said above, they came back and fixed most of the issues (though one or two niggles remain) but the upstand is just the straw that broke the camels back so to speak and am absolutely loath to pay in full for this unless it's rectified... particularly given everything that's gone on. Unfortunately once again they will once again hold up this piece of paper that someone has signed as proof that everything they did is on the up and up. Can they do that?

letdowncrush

Bah! Turns out the form did have a "I confirm Im happy" yada yada disclaimer.

Doozergirl

letdowncrush wrote: »

Bah! Turns out the form did have a "I confirm Im happy" yada yada disclaimer.

But it hasn't got your name on it! The person who signed is not their customer and the order isn't even what the customer agreed to - presumably you have a copy of this?

I'd contact trading standards. You knew what you wanted, they knew they were dealing with a builder. They should have double checked everything with you before accepting signatures of people unrelated to the job.

letdowncrush

Doozergirl wrote: »

But it hasn't got your name on it! The person who signed is not their customer and the order isn't even what the customer agreed to - presumably you have a copy of this?

I'd contact trading standards. You knew what you wanted, they knew they were dealing with a builder. They should have double checked everything with you before accepting signatures of people unrelated to the job.

I know but we ended up not challenging that to avoid the hassle. This time the (new) form has got our signature on it (we don't have a copy to check exactly what is says) but they still haven't done it right.