Home care and boiler protection issue

Ivrytwr3

In laws have dropped it on me today that they are having issues with a company who was providing home care with annual boiler service. 

It seems for 3 years they have been trying to get a boiler service with them, but nobody has come out. The inlaws told them of nobody comes out again they will cancel the policy and stop the monthly direct debit.

Nobody came out and so they cancelled and stopped the direct debit. 

The inlaws have now had a bill for the missing months plus a £30 admin charge. 

Are the inlaws in the right? Is it worth contacting the company again? 

Any advice would be welcome as it is now my problem to sort apparently! 

Notepad_Phil

When your in-laws phoned the company were they given any reason why no boiler servicing had been done?

Can they remember date and time and who they talked to?

Did they log an actual complaint?

Who is the homecare with?

Morally they may be in the right but that won't stop the internal wheels of the company from starting to turn when they spot that a DD has been cancelled midway through a contract without a specific cancellation request through their admin systems - telling a service adviser that you're going to cancel if something doesn't happen is unfortunately not the same thing. Personally I would have phoned them one last time to tell them that due to their failure that I wished to cancel the policy, and then raise a complaint if they refused to do so.

Unfortunately I doubt whether the company will talk to you as you're not their customer, but you could always try. Perhaps get your inlaws to ring them and once they're through they can say that they want you to speak to them If that doesn't work then to make any progress you could always compose a letter, print it out and then get the relevant inlaw to sign.

tacpot12

If the Home Care plan included boiler servicing and the firm haven't carried this out, then they are in breach of contract, and the contract should be ended by this. Check if the In-laws have home insurance and legal expenses cover as part of this, as they should be able to get professional legal advice if they do. 

Ivrytwr3

It's a company called 'The Boiler Company'! And yes, an annual boiler service was part of the home care package.

Any templates or advice on what i need to include in our letter/email to them?

Notepad_Phil

As a first step I'd try to phone them as that's going to be a lot quicker and you'll know exactly what's going on. If they won't talk to you as you're not their client then get your in-laws to ring first and then get them to hand it over to you. A pain I know, but it's better in my opinion to get this sorted asap before any other debt recovery process starts which complicates things and you need to get even more involved.