Miss-lead on boiler sale

Jobberdun

We had a salesman come round to quote on a new boiler.

We wanted a worcester-bosh boiler which he told us came with a ten year guarantee and included 10 years of service plan.

We sat there and confirmed with him that we had TOTAL cover for 10 years including the annual service which he agreed verbally.

We have since recieved the paperwork which now claims only a 5 year guarantee and NO annual service cover (we have to pay £99 a year to have it serviced by them or the guarantee is void)

i have spoken to the company who have agreed that the salesman did offer us a 10 year guarantee (as he wrote it on the paperwork) but nothing about the annual service being free for 10 years.

They are saying they cannot honour the guarantee or the verbal agreement about the service plan!

We only had it fitted three weeks ago. Where do we stand?

Thank you

Shaka_Zulu

Where you stand depends on what a judge thinks reasonable.

I can understand the 10 year warranty if you have it serviced by them but I'm struggling with the free servicing for 10 years and I suspect the judge may do too. That would be worth over £1,000.

I would pick your battle carefully on this one.

eddddy

Jobberdun wrote: »

They are saying they cannot honour the guarantee or the verbal agreement about the service plan!

Shaka_Zulu wrote: »

Where you stand depends on what a judge thinks reasonable.

It's not really a case of what the judge thinks is reasonable, it's a case of what the judge believes the salesman said.

If the salesman said 10 year warranty and 10 years servicing in order to persuade you to agree to the contract, that's what you are legally entitled to.

I'd say that the fact that the salesman put 10 year warranty in writing demonstrates that either...

- he doesn't know his company's products very well, or
- he was intentionally telling fibs to make you sign

Either way, it makes it more likely that he was mistaken (or fibbed) about the servicing.


If you want to persue this, it would be a case of making a claim for misrepresentation to cover your losses (i.e. the cost of a guarantee and servicing) in the small claims court.

But the court would decide on the balance of probabilities - i.e. whose evidence sounds most likely to be true, yours or the company's?

So it's not guaranteed that you would win.

bris

It's not in the paperwork which would be crucial in this situation. Bottom line is the OP should have went over the contract before signing, judge would have no choice but to throw it out, hearsay wouldn't trump this contract.

shaun_from_Africa

bris wrote: »

It's not in the paperwork which would be crucial in this situation. Bottom line is the OP should have went over the contract before signing, judge would have no choice but to throw it out, hearsay wouldn't trump this contract.

The 10 years inclusive servicing isn't in the contract but as the 10 year guarantee was stated by the salesman and is written on the paperwork, there is no reason to think that a judge wouldn't agree that this guarantee forms part of the terms of the contract of sale.

eddddy

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

The 10 years inclusive servicing isn't in the contract ...

Just to be clear, if the salesman said 10 years servicing was included, then it forms part of the contract - even if it's not written down.

But the problem is that the salesman will probably deny he said it.

So ultimately, a judge would have to decide whether he/she believes that the salesman said it or not (on the balance of probabilities).


(An interesting thought - if you were a judge, would you suspect that a central heating salesman might sometimes not tell the truth?)