Will I get charged for my boiler serve if I cancel Homecare midway?

ClarkeKent

After a expensive year with Homecare, we paid over £360 to them for callouts and monthly fees for tiny jobs. Time to wave goodbye to them.

Our "contract" self renewed in Nov 15, if I cancel now do I have to pay for the boiler service we had done in January 2016 that comes free as part of the package?

CashStrapped

Was that £360 in addition to the monthly contract or is that for everything for the year?

If the boiler service was provided as part of the contract and you are currently not tied in (on a rolling contract) then I do not think they will. The only way to tell is by looking in your terms and conditions under cancellations. If you have paid up front for the year they they should just refund you the remaining months. If you pay by monthly DD they they should give you a partial refund for the month you are on.

As I have advised in past posts. Forget homecare. Open up a savings account, call it personal homecare and put the same amount you were paying by DD into it. Hopefully buy the time you need to dip in to it you will have a nice pot to make repairs from using a local gas safe engineer. If you do not need to use it for a long time, you will eventually have enough for a boiler replacement if and when you need it.

You must have to personal conviction to set it up and not touch the savings though....that is the hard part

ClarkeKent

That figure was for the year, £150 for monthly home care and then two callout/fixes for tiny problems that were £100 each.

Will defo do the savings option, it is a newish boiler too( and we don't have the heating on often) so £350 for the year was very frustrating.

So the Homecare 200 monthly contract started in Nov 15 and we had our boiler service in January 16'
http://www.britishgas.co.uk/content/dam/british-gas/documents/HomeCare_Range_Terms_and_Conditions.pdf

We are currently paying £14 p/m so it would be £98 we are paying to BG before the contract ends in November.

Scrounger

There will (almost certainly) be cancellation charges to pay for any work carried out if the policy is cancelled early - eg boiler service [£65*].

This is explained in the t&c's near to the end on page 18 - 'Cancelling your agreement', [* = fee shown in charges table]

Otherwise you could get your boiler serviced for just £14 (one months cover) and then cancel :rotfl:.

Scrounger

CashStrapped

Is that the case if the policy holder is out of contract? If you read the post that is the specific situation in this case.

He has been with homecare for more than the initial fixed contract period. He is now on a rolling contract and should be able to cancel at any time. He should still check the cancellation policy.

Scrounger

The policy holder is not "out of contract" as it's an annual agreement.

It's not like a phone or broadband contract that reverts to a rolling contract after 12 or 24 months. :eek:

From the t&c's:

If you or we cancel your agreement or any products and we’ve already completed work for you since you bought or renewed them, you may have to pay cancellation charges

Most insurance products work this way.

Scrounger

CashStrapped

The best way is to ring and ask.

They also say "we will take off any excesses, fixed fees and payments you’ve made since you bought or renewed your agreement".

This suggests that if the payments made already covers the services undertaken, no extra would have to be paid. In this case five months including November at £14p/m = £70 which covers the annual service. If the OP has not used any other services this [contract] year then it may be already covered.

As I said, ring them and ask.

If you have paid annually they will refund the remaining months (bar the month your in) and if monthly, your cover will remain till the end of the month.

Scrounger

On further reflection, if the OP's "newish" boiler that is not used much has required two repairs in the last year, it may prove cost effective to stick with Homecare - as reliability generally doesn't tend to improve with age.

Scrounger