Money Moral Dilemma: Should I keep the money my plumber would have made from selling my old taps?

Allan.holdgate

Give the money to the plumber & charge him a storage fee of the same amount to "cover insurance & other expenses of looking after & handing over to purchaser"

akwexavante

You would think that this is true: "I think it's perfectly reasonable to argue that ownership of the objects being removed remains with the property owner until at least the time the items leave the property, if not until the time they enter the hands of a scrap merchant or end up at a recycling place."

But it's not...... The law is that all spare stuff and or broken whatever belongs to the original owner for six months after being taken away by the trades' person unless signed over to the trades' person by the owner.

A washing machine engineer replaces a pump in a washing machine and takes the old one away.  The owner of the machine can ask for the old pump back up to six months afterwards.

I know this to be true because i have fallen foul of this myself.

primrose_penguin

If I have read this right, it seems as if the plumber was doing you a favour, otherwise how would the lady know to come to your address to buy the taps, he would have put his own address in the advert, in this case I would share the money with him. When we bought our house we had a new bathroom suite and central heating boiler, the plumber who did the work told us he could sell the old sink and toilet (there was no bath) if we would like and he offered us a sum of money which we accepted, obviously he must have made some on it too, but that was fine with us as we never expected to get any money for the old sink and toilet, we were just glad he was taking it away.

Traficlady

The plumber was advertising for sale something that didn’t belong to him so I would say he has no right to the money.

Thrugelmir

John_Gray said:

Do you not get the impression that we're scraping (tapping?) the bottom of the barrel for these "moral dilemmas"?

Is Jackanory still on the TV? As there's some creative minds looking for work. 

pollytan

Unless you have an agreement with the plumber to remove all the old fitting for which his estimate would have included it. They fitting are yours to dispose of.   I have seen this happen with old copper boilers and even old slate roofs.  They charge you to remove them and then sell them on  Quite a "Perk"

GDB2222

akwexavante said:

You would think that this is true: "I think it's perfectly reasonable to argue that ownership of the objects being removed remains with the property owner until at least the time the items leave the property, if not until the time they enter the hands of a scrap merchant or end up at a recycling place."

But it's not...... The law is that all spare stuff and or broken whatever belongs to the original owner for six months after being taken away by the trades' person unless signed over to the trades' person by the owner.

A washing machine engineer replaces a pump in a washing machine and takes the old one away.  The owner of the machine can ask for the old pump back up to six months afterwards.

I know this to be true because i have fallen foul of this myself.

The value of the broken component is probably nothing, or at most pennies. Your customer who wanted their broken graphics card back was entitled to compensation for its value as a broken graphics card, which is nothing. Which you demonstrated by recycling it.  What was the upshot of this?

[Deleted User]

beadjoux said:

Middlestitch said:

happyinflorida said:

Why is no one saying anything about data protection?  The plumber has advertised this persons taps and given their address - I'd be fuming
What an absolute cheek this plumber has got, he'd be out the door faster than a whippet if it were me

Where's the breach? Nothing to link the owner of the house with the address given by the plumber.

The breach is in placing someone's personal address on an electronic system without permission of the owner with a clear invitation to visit the property for a financial transaction to take place. Imagine if this was someone in witness protection or fleeing domestic violence? 

What if it was nuns looking after kittens for orphan kids? Won't someone PLEASE think of the children??

Extreme hypothetical scenarios are not counter arguments. If someone was in witness protection or fleeing domestic abuse, how would an advert that Bob the plumber wants to sell some taps and here is the address in any way link the victim? Think logically. Imagining the OP was in witness protection, what do you think the odds are that the person they were hiding from would just happen to be in the same town and just happen to see an advert for taps and actually want to buy them? OP doesn't even say what site it was on, it could have been some trade website or similar. It's about as much of a data protection breach as google street view showing inside your house

akwexavante

"The value of the broken component is probably nothing, or at most pennies. Your customer who wanted their broken graphics card back was entitled to compensation for its value as a broken graphics card, which is nothing. Which you demonstrated by recycling it.  What was the upshot of this?"

They were very persistent over a number of weeks.  I sought advice and was told to ignore them and not engage in any form of communication with them.  I was advised to go back to the solicitor if i should receive a formal letter or a summons. I never did.

The solicitor advised me of my obligations, my rights and the rights of my customers when handling spare / left over parts, materials and scrap / faulty or broken components etc.

Anything that a person takes away from a customers address still belongs to the customer for six months afterwards and the customer during this period can ask for things back and the trades' person should return it on request. Failure to do so is theft.

To comply with the law the solicitor advised me to obtain a "Waste Carriers Licence" and alter my invoices in a way that customers automatically signed over ownership (By Way Of A Waste Transfer Note) of any left over stuff inc anything that was broken, faulty or redundant etc on payment for services rendered.   If a customer "at the time of the repair / upgrade" wants to keep broken and or left over / redundant components that was fine by me but if i took things away then it automatically becomes my property as soon as services were paid for which 99% of the time is always "on the spot" at the customers home before i leave.

The invoice doubles up as a "Waste Transfer Note" to comply with the law and the "Waste Carriers Licence" allows me to legally carry waste in a vehicle.

On leaving the customers address having given an invoice which has been paid already i immediately own any faulty, broken or redundant leftover parts and materials etc.   On a very very rare occasion (Three times over a 25yr period) i have had a phone call asking for something back, i still had an old redundant printer which hadn't been sent away for recycling yet "I gave it back" Good PR to do so where it's possible to do so.    It's when this happens, and it's too late, i'm covered now, which has happened twice since i initially got caught out.

The taps were not taken away by the plumber.  Even if he did take them away and without a "Waste Transfer Note"  they would still belong to the customer for six months UNLESS the customer signed over ownership by way of a "Waste Transfer Note".    The plumber was selling something that didn't belong to him as they were not in his possession and six months hadn't passed by.

The customer should keep the money and tell the plumber to take a long walk off a short pier.

Clarity2

Of course you should keep the money. Nobody puts something on ebay under somebody else's address by mistake, so the plumber was either being really nice to you (most likely) or was using your address for dodgy reasons (much less likely) and either way you keep the money, and either way it's important to thank the plumber.