Damaged caused by mattress delivery/removal

Grimbal

Grateful for any advice on this, I'm finding it incredibly frustrating !

During delivery of a (Nectar Sleep) mattress, the delivery guys caused a lot of damage to the walls & ceiling of the stairs & landing. I immediately contacted Nectar, who after a few emails back & forth, took 4 days to finally let me know that I should be contacting the courier company.

I immediately contacted the courier company who are saying that I left it too late to notify them of the damage. I've tried arguing with Nectar that my contract was with them, but they are just not having it. I've tried getting the courier company (ArrowXL) to reopen the claim due to the lengthy delay caused by Nectar, but they won't.

I don't know what steps to take next & would appreciate any thoughts or guidance. TIA

Aylesbury_Duck

Keep on at Nectar. They are the only people you have a contract with. Send them a letter outlining what you want as resolution and explaining that you will get the damage corrected and take it to small claims if they won’t deal with it.

Grimbal

Aylesbury_Duck wrote: »

Keep on at Nectar. They are the only people you have a contract with. Send them a letter outlining what you want as resolution and explaining that you will get the damage corrected and take it to small claims if they won’t deal with it.

Thank you. I've already asked them to supply details about starting a formal complaint with them. From the very start, I've repeated that I believe my complaint is with them rather than the courier company: I had no contract with the couriers & no choice whether I used them or not.

Would the next step be to take it to the Small Claims court then ? I've registered online to use it, but am worried about what the costs would be to me should my claim fail - is there any information about that do you know ?

unholyangel

Your next step is a letter before action - outlining the basis of your claim and informing them if they don't offer a satisfactory resolution within 14 days, you may commence legal proceedings against them without further warning at which time their liability for costs may increase.

The basis of your claim is this. That you contract with them included delivery. They can assign the benefit of a contract but cannot assign the obligations. That means that while they can hire another company to carry out their obligations, they remain liable for any breach by their chosen third party while carrying out those obligations.

However my curiosity is getting the better of me. How did the mattress damage the ceiling? Walls I can understand - scraping against them and perhaps tearing wallpaper. But ceilings aren't usually wallpapered in my experience so I'm wondering what damage has been caused.

davidmcn

unholyangel wrote: »

ceilings aren't usually wallpapered in my experience

It's pretty common for them to be papered - easy way of covering up cracked plaster.

unholyangel

davidmcn wrote: »

It's pretty common for them to be papered - easy way of covering up cracked plaster.

It may be something thats done, but its most definitely not common. At least not in the sense of the usually done thing (which is what I said btw).

My first house had wallpaper on the living room ceiling - which was promptly removed and properly done. It can be a cheap way to hide the imperfections in ceilings with a poor finish but i personally wouldn't do it over cracks.

I wouldn't expect someone complaining over a tear in wallpaper to be likely to paper over the ceiling though. The former implies they like things to be perfect. The latter implies as long as it looks okay from afar, it doesn't bother them

stragglebod

The OP has said nothing about wallpaper on the ceiling.

Paul_DNAP

It's ridiculous when they start the "not my responsibility" nonsense with delivery. The delivery is THEIR sub-contractor, and the delivery is part of the payment you made to them.


To stop that nonsense off, you could send the letter before action to both companies and indicate your case is against both "the contracted supplier NECTAR and their sub-contracted delivery agent ARROWXL"

DoaM

stragglebod wrote: »

The OP has said nothing about wallpaper on the ceiling.

OP said nothing about wallpaper at all.

It's entirely feasible that manoeuvring the mattress (in its plastic wrapping) has caused scrapes on painted walls and ceilings.

Grimbal

unholyangel wrote: »

Your next step is a letter before action - outlining the basis of your claim and informing them if they don't offer a satisfactory resolution within 14 days, you may commence legal proceedings against them without further warning at which time their liability for costs may increase.

The basis of your claim is this. That you contract with them included delivery. They can assign the benefit of a contract but cannot assign the obligations. That means that while they can hire another company to carry out their obligations, they remain liable for any breach by their chosen third party while carrying out those obligations.

However my curiosity is getting the better of me. How did the mattress damage the ceiling? Walls I can understand - scraping against them and perhaps tearing wallpaper. But ceilings aren't usually wallpapered in my experience so I'm wondering what damage has been caused.

Thank you, very helpful for all that information. The damages are superficial scrapes to ceilings, and some walls, but also deep gouges to the plasterwork along the stairway a few inches above the top of the skirting board. The edges of the gouged out plaster are black - nothing on either of the mattresses was either black or of a material that would cause this damage as far as I could make out. I suspect it was perhaps something that they were wearing that caused this, no idea what, but something was done during the process !

unholyangel

Grimbal wrote: »

Thank you, very helpful for all that information. The damages are superficial scrapes to ceilings, and some walls, but also deep gouges to the plasterwork along the stairway a few inches above the top of the skirting board. The edges of the gouged out plaster are black - nothing on either of the mattresses was either black or of a material that would cause this damage as far as I could make out. I suspect it was perhaps something that they were wearing that caused this, no idea what, but something was done during the process !

Ah thank you. That would explain it. I was wondering how flimsy walls/ceilings would need to be to be damaged by a mattress