Wren Kitchens/Section 75/Finance

Somerset21

Good morning,

Apologies for yet another Wren Kitchens thread.

Some friends of mine are currently going through a bit of a nightmare with Wren Kitchens. The whole saga has gone on for the best part of six months. Unfortunately, one of my friends has become rather ill, so I have offered to see if I can help them resolve their issues with Wren.

They ordered a new kitchen from Wren for a total cost of approx £25k. This figure included a charge for fitting. My friends paid a deposit of £2.7K using their credit card, the rest being financed through a loan made via Wren Kitchens and Barclays Finance (the in house Wren finance company). Wren also advised that extra work would be required at a cost of around £6k, which would be paid directly to the fitters. The agreed fitting date was in early August.

Basically the issues are: There were numerous issues with the delivery and quality of the kitchen units. In total there have been in excess of over 20 deliveries (replacements for missing parts or defective parts). The fitting was cancelled on numerous occasions. They are now on their fifth installer. Part of the kitchen has not been fitted as per the plans, and some of the units are now no longer available. They have not had a fully functioning kitchen (including no running water in the kitchen) for getting on for four months.  Wren have made little effort in resolving these issues. |Complaints to the senior team at Wren have just been referred back to the store where the order was placed.

I would be grateful for some advice on what should be the next step forward in tackling Wren.

Presumably Section 75 will be of assistance here. In a situation like this what do you actually claim for? Would it be the cost of the entire kitchen (which seems unlikely) or the cost of putting things right? Are the finance company equally liable as the credit card company? In short, what would be the best way forward in tackling Wren?

Apologies for the long post.

Grateful for any advice. 

eskbanker

Somerset21 said:

They ordered a new kitchen from Wren for a total cost of approx £25k. This figure included a charge for fitting. My friends paid a deposit of £2.7K using their credit card, the rest being financed through a loan made via Wren Kitchens and Barclays Finance (the in house Wren finance company). Wren also advised that extra work would be required at a cost of around £6k, which would be paid directly to the fitters.

[...]

Presumably Section 75 will be of assistance here. In a situation like this what do you actually claim for? Would it be the cost of the entire kitchen (which seems unlikely) or the cost of putting things right? Are the finance company equally liable as the credit card company?

The amounts involved could complicate matters for holding financial companies liable - section 75 covers items purchased for up to £30K, while section 75A is available for higher amounts if relating to finance taken out specifically to fund a purchase, which would appear to be the case here.

The card company could argue that s75 doesn't come into play if the purchase is over £30K but much will come down to how the value of the job is quantified - s75 relates to items priced at up to £30K but a job like this would normally be considered one purchase.  Was the finance for more or less than £30K?

DullGreyGuy

eskbanker said:

Somerset21 said:

They ordered a new kitchen from Wren for a total cost of approx £25k. This figure included a charge for fitting. My friends paid a deposit of £2.7K using their credit card, the rest being financed through a loan made via Wren Kitchens and Barclays Finance (the in house Wren finance company). Wren also advised that extra work would be required at a cost of around £6k, which would be paid directly to the fitters.

[...]

Presumably Section 75 will be of assistance here. In a situation like this what do you actually claim for? Would it be the cost of the entire kitchen (which seems unlikely) or the cost of putting things right? Are the finance company equally liable as the credit card company?

The amounts involved could complicate matters for holding financial companies liable - section 75 covers items purchased for up to £30K, while section 75A is available for higher amounts if relating to finance taken out specifically to fund a purchase, which would appear to be the case here.

The card company could argue that s75 doesn't come into play if the purchase is over £30K but much will come down to how the value of the job is quantified - s75 relates to items priced at up to £30K but a job like this would normally be considered one purchase.  Was the finance for more or less than £30K?

The op say it was £25k + £6k paid to a different party... S75 is always an oddity because of it being an item price and clearly for a kitchen you could describe it a dozen different ways on the invoice but it would be exceptionally difficult to argue a payment to a third party can be considered as part of the original price. 

Certainly given how our kitchen was quoted I'd be more concerned that various handles etc would be excluded because they were listed independently with a unit price below £100. 

Somerset21 said:

Presumably Section 75 will be of assistance here. In a situation like this what do you actually claim for? Would it be the cost of the entire kitchen (which seems unlikely) or the cost of putting things right? Are the finance company equally liable as the credit card company? In short, what would be the best way forward in tackling Wren?

S75 always adds the complexity of the D-C-S chain but assuming your friend is the account holder and named on the invoice then they most likely have a S75 claim against either the two finance companies. The claim would be for the damages sustained and so would be for the lower of finishing the kitchen or reimbursement

born_again

Best bet to go to Barclays Finance on this one. As they are closer to the issue.

Somerset21

Thank you both for your comments.

Just to clarify. The invoice price from Wren was just over £25k. This covered the supply and fitting of a complete kitchen. A deposit was paid by credit card (same name as invoice) of approx £2.7K. The balance paid by a Wren/Barclays loan of approx £23K. 

Wren estimated the additional costs of fitting the kitchen (plastering, tiling etc) would be approx £6K. This is separate to any payments to Wren and covers some work during the installation (plastering, moving electrical sockets etc) and some after the kitchen units had been installed (tiles etc). Only about £4K of this has been paid. Am I right in assuming this work and these payments will not be relevant to a Section 75/Finance claim?  

eskbanker

Somerset21 said:

Thank you both for your comments.

Just to clarify. The invoice price from Wren was just over £25k. This covered the supply and fitting of a complete kitchen. A deposit was paid by credit card (same name as invoice) of approx £2.7K. The balance paid by a Wren/Barclays loan of approx £23K. 

Wren estimated the additional costs of fitting the kitchen (plastering, tiling etc) would be approx £6K. This is separate to any payments to Wren and covers some work during the installation (plastering, moving electrical sockets etc) and some after the kitchen units had been installed (tiles etc). Only about £4K of this has been paid. Am I right in assuming this work and these payments will not be relevant to a Section 75/Finance claim?  

It sounds like the additional £6K was an entirely separate contract, so yes, it wouldn't form part of any claim against Wren for the goods and services supplied under the main agreement.

DullGreyGuy

Somerset21 said:

Thank you both for your comments.

Just to clarify. The invoice price from Wren was just over £25k. This covered the supply and fitting of a complete kitchen. A deposit was paid by credit card (same name as invoice) of approx £2.7K. The balance paid by a Wren/Barclays loan of approx £23K. 

Wren estimated the additional costs of fitting the kitchen (plastering, tiling etc) would be approx £6K. This is separate to any payments to Wren and covers some work during the installation (plastering, moving electrical sockets etc) and some after the kitchen units had been installed (tiles etc). Only about £4K of this has been paid. Am I right in assuming this work and these payments will not be relevant to a Section 75/Finance claim?  

It would depend a) on how you paid for it and b) if it could be a consequential loss... sounds like you didnt pay for it by CC and would be work required anyway independent to the issues with Wren and so unlikely claimable. 

The invoice from Wren depends on how its diplayed... if its a list of things with no prices and just £25k at the bottom then its almost certainly fine. On ours it had things like 20x handles @ £15 = £300 and so a S75 claim for ours (not Wren) could have elements crossed off as the item prices were below the £100 minimum.

Personally, this is one of my multiple issues with S75 because in principle so much comes down to how a retailer has decided to describe things on a receipt/invoice/contract which is very arbitrary.  

Somerset21

Thank you for all your comments.

Just to clarify. As I understand it, the additional work (the 6K work) will not be part of any claim. The major issue is the supply and fitting of the kitchen as invoiced by Wren. 

On the presumption that a claim could be made against either the CC provider, or the loan provider, which one would have precedence (if that makes sense)? Or would you put a claim in with both of them.?

DullGreyGuy - Thank you. That is interesting. Although I am surprised by what you say. Surely if a single credit card payment is made to Wren, which clearly covers the supply and fitting of a complete kitchen (as described and portrayed in various plans and illustrations) then S75 coverage would apply. I appreciate the credit card company may try to reject a claim, but surely then the FOS would overrule them? 

eskbanker

Somerset21 said:

Surely if a single credit card payment is made to Wren, which clearly covers the supply and fitting of a complete kitchen (as described and portrayed in various plans and illustrations) then S75 coverage would apply. I appreciate the credit card company may try to reject a claim, but surely then the FOS would overrule them? 

The word 'item' is the key point of interpretation, as the legislation clearly states that it...

does not apply to a claim [...] so far as the claim relates to any single item to which the supplier has attached a cash price not exceeding £100 or more than £30,000

so if an invoice is broken down into many individual items, some of which are priced below £100, then there's potentially scope for debate.

Somerset21

Thank you eskbanker for your advice. I accept there may be issues with S75 further down the line.

On the assumption that S75 would apply, can anyone advise me of what would be the best course of action in this particular case? Would the primary route be?  Credit card or finance company? 

Unfortunately they do not have legal cover on their house insurance. 

Thank you.

eskbanker

Somerset21 said:

On the assumption that S75 would apply, can anyone advise me of what would be the best course of action in this particular case? Would the primary route be?  Credit card or finance company? 

Not sure to be honest - there is an argument that it would be more reasonable to approach the finance company, given their majority funding, but their closeness to the merchant could conceivably be less favourable for you.  If you claim against one, there's nothing to stop you later doing so against the other, and I believe that you can actually go to both simultaneously if you choose....