Supply only kitchen with many faults - small claims court?

boots_babe

Hi,

Hoping for some impartial advice from those of you who may have submitted something via the Small Claims Court before.

Very long story, but in short we ordered over £20k of supply only kitchen units from a UK based company. Across 120 items in total we had 54 items so badly damaged that they needed replacing (including 9 items that were replacements for faulty replacements, that themselves were replacements for faulty replacements), 21 damaged items that we agreed to accept as we thought we could hide the damaged areas and wanted to minimise any further delays to install.

The company were supposed to collect the damaged items but then refused to, so that is huge amounts of time and effort to dispose of 54 items. Plus a number of other issues.

This caused us significant extra costs with the kitchen fitter, plus many many hours of time and effort on our part to deal with all damaged items. After delivery in early October and fitting booked first week of November, fitting was completed until January due to all the problems.

I emailed the CEO but was ignored, I then sent a recorded delivery letter to head office, also ignored. 2 months after the letter I submitted an email to their help portal, who after some delay have come back to say they are not responsible for additional fitting costs.

They have offered £200 compensation for all of the issues - we have an itemised invoice from our kitchen fitter showing that additional fitting costs alone were over £1k extra. 

Would it be sensible for us to go ahead and submit to the small claims court? It feels as though the company has tried to ignore us, and is now just brushing us off with a token small payment, which goes very little way to compensating us for our additional costs incurred, let alone the extra time and effort on our part to deal with all of the issues.

We have evidence of the extra fitter costs in the form of an invoice outlining what the extra costs are for. We obviously have the receipts for the original purchase of the kitchen. I have the photos we took of each piece of damage as we had to painstakingly catalogue everything, in order to get replacements sent out to use where required.

Would the court be likely be of any help? And would they consider any form of recompense for our own time spent on the issues? Obviously we cannot evidence that, but the volumes of faulty items are hopefully indicative alone. 

What do people think? 

Many thanks.

tacpot12

If you have home insurance, check to see if you have legal expenses cover. If you do, call the legal helpline provided by your insurer. They will give you advice on the potential you have to win your case, and what sort of sum the court might award. 

I tend to agree that the cost of additional fitting wouldn't be awarded - it was your decision to try to fit the badly damaged items. Your rights in consumer law would be to have the damaged items replaced. While a judge will understand your argument that further time spent waiting for replacements to be delivered would have created an impossible situation where you would have had to stood the fitters down while waiting for the replacement items - Kitchens are not easy things to do without - but they may not be able to award these extra costs (I'm no legal expert). 

However, the sheer number of faults seems to warrant a significant refund. I would have thought 10-20% of the contract value, so there is some advantage to going to court, if there is a good chance of winning.  

Mark_d

I believe the courts would be on your side.  If you have legal cover with your home insurance then they can help you.  If you don't then maybe you can get legal advice through an employers Employee Assistance Plan or Citizens Advice/
If I had spent £20k on a kitchen and nearly half the items were significantly damaged, I'd demand they company take all the items back, provide a refund and compensation.  Spending that much on a kitchen, surely you're not going to settle for anything less than perfect?

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Who is the company OP? 

Mention of head office and CEO suggests a big company? If so they aren’t likely to want to defend a claim for a grand in small claims as it will cost them more than that but they might be hoping you give up. 

Letter before action only costs a stamp, extra costs are damages, they need to be foreseeable in order to be claimed, I would say that a company which specialises in kitchens would know persistent faulty deliveries would rack up fitting costs but that’s just my opinion.

Probably won’t get anything for time but possible loss of enjoyment, especially if you were planning say a big family Christmas @A_Geordie might have more info for you on  that one.

Where they replaced items and the replacements were damaged yet you kept the items you are entitled to a price reduction under the CRA.

If disposal cost you any money that you can show you should be able to claim for that as well I would say

boots_babe

Thanks so much for all the replies.

@tacpot12 - it wasn't fitting the damaged items that caused the extra costs - that saved us time, rather than waiting for replacements. It was that every time the fitter started to do something, he'd find another issue which required a replacement, so he then was having to try to start work on another part. The nature of a kitchen fit is that things need to be done in a certain order, in parts, so a couple of issues like this could be worked with without huge impact. But when there 54 items that all needed replacing, you quickly end up with having delays, and having to do things in a very inefficient order which costs a lot more. There were also several instances of key parts completely missing, which caused further issues.

Unfortunately we don't have legal cover or any EAP scheme available. I will try CAB though, thanks for that suggestion.

Offering £200 which is less than 1% of what we paid seems derisory. Honestly we were working in the day, then spending all evening dealing with issues every night for what went on for weeks. It was exhausting, and no customer should have such an extreme experience. I was very tempted to just say let's forget it and move on, but actually it's not right that a company should be able to deliver such poor quality product backed up with appalling customer service, and just get away with it. If nobody complains then they will keep doing it to other customers.

@Mark_d - I do completely agree with your sentiment. But when you've been without a kitchen for so many weeks, it becomes more important to make compromises in order to get to some form of more liveable state. We absolutely shouldn't have to take sub-part damaged items and still pay full price, and I know we agreed to do so at the suggestion of the company, but it was the best option at the time, we felt we had little choice.

@the_lunatic_is_in_my_head - it was DIY Kitchens, based in Pontefract. There is a dedicated FB group for the company which we are in, and I know that a lot of people do have damages, although not many as extreme as ours, but there are also people who have next to no damages. 

A_Geordie

The general rule is that compensation fo distress, inconvenience or similar are not recoverable under contract law, however significant that distress or inconvenience may be, unless it was expressly agreed as part of the contract, then it could be recoverable compensaton. 

The exception to this rule is where the contract provides for peace, pleasure or some other kind of enjoyment and these types of compensation claims are almost always exclusive to holiday claims, which are usually modest amounts commensurate to the cost of the holiday and other factors like special occasions. 

The difficulty in working out how much to claim for loss of enjoyment of the use of a new kitchen is that there isn't any precedent to work from. If I were looking at this, I would probably consider the following non-exhaustive factors: 

1. Did you really lose any enjoyment from the kitchen install? What I mean by this is, if you were just replacing the kitchen because it was old and out of date, then it's unlikely that there was much, if any loss of enjoyment or pleasure caused by the delays. On the other hand, if you were a keen cook or baker and you regularly had family or friend gatherings, baked cakes for your local church or charity or something like that, then one might accept that there has been some loss of enjoyment. 

2. Of the £20k spent, what was the cost of the kitchen appliances which you were looking forward to using? I say this because the kitchen company could argue that you don't really get a sense of pleasure or enjoyment out of kitchen cupboards or units unless you can make a good counter-argument. Maybe a built-in lazy susan which stores your spices in your cupboards might give you some pleasure or enjoyment for the first couple of times but that's a bit of a stretch if I'm being honest. 

3. Are there any aggravating factors that contributed to the loss of enjoyment? Delays, the company's conduct, failure to collect/replace the damaged units and having to dispose of them yourself are factors since it is a combination of things that has compounded the issue and contributed to the loss of enjoyment. Even if a court ultimately doesn't accept that, it's still worth arguing.

There is no fixed amount or formula on how much you can claim, but bear in mind it needs to be relative to the cost of the kitchen (but in my opinion limited to the cost of applicances, features/functionality that give rise to enjoyment or pleasure). 
 
To give you a flavour, the courts have offered compensation for holiday claims based on the following categories:

• Couples whose plans to marry abroad were wrecked had received between £4,406 and £4,360;
• Disappointed honeymooners had received between £321 to £1,890;
• Holiday goers on other ‘special holidays’ that were ruined had received between £264 to £1161; and
• Holiday-goers on ruined “run of the mill holidays” attracted between £83 and £876.

Translated into a kitchen nightmare, I might say: 

• State of the art kitchen, best of the best gadgets and gizmos (think £million homes) = up to £1,500 - £2,000 or more
• Luxury kitchens with 'smart' features and functionalities (fancy downdraft kitchen extractors, smart fridge/freezers, cooker/oven, built in beer dispenser etc. = maybe somewhere between £500 - £1,000
• Run of the mill, basic kitchen replacement of units and minimal features/functionality = up to £200

I should point out that these amounts are purely speculative and my own opinion so do not take them as gospel. They are lower amounts than holiday compensation because the very core matter of a holiday is for peace, pleasure and enjoyment whereas after the kitchen install, that initial excitement you might have will likely fade away pretty quickly. I could be way off the mark with these compensation amounts but each case turns on their own facts and ultimately down to a court to decide.

If you don't ask, you don't get. Just don't be silly.

If disposal cost you any money that you can show you should be able to claim for that as well I would say

Also, I agree with this. As a minimum, the cost of fuel/electricity to travel to dispose of the units.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Thanks @A_Geordie, it was only the time of year that made me wonder, I guess if OP sends an LBA asking for direct losses and adds the company's existing £200 offer on as loss of enjoyment as you say don' ask, don't get, I just wondered if OP had to follow through with small claims would a court would take a dim view of such a request if it was without merit. 

@boots_babeDIY Kitchens is a pretty big company, I'd send a letter before action asking for:

1) Fitting costs, this should be straightforward and you can include a copy of the paperwork given to you by the fitter

2) Disposal costs, I would note that paragraph (2)(b) of Section 22 of the Consumer Rights Act (CRA) notes the trader must bear the reasonable costs of providing a replacement and as you were left with large items that they refused to collect/accept back they owe for the reasonable costs of disposal and again include any paperwork you have to show these costs.

3) Price reduction, where goods continue not to conform after a replacement (or repair) is given, as per paragraphs (1) and (5) of Section 24 of the CRA, you are entitled to a price reduction.

You are only entitled to this on damaged items which they replaced, if you kept any that weren't replaced this doesn't apply.

If you want to be extremely reasonable I would only ask for this on items where damage, etc is visible so if a cupboard had a scratch on the side but that side had an end panel fitted to it meaning the damage is completely covered I wouldn't ask for a price reduction on that particular item. 

However if any items were damaged but it was obvious, say the damage is inside a cupboard and only noticeable when you open the cupboard door, I would say asking for 10% back on such items would be reasonable IMHO. If any are damaged and that is visible for simply standing in the kitchen I'd ask for 20-25% on those particular items. 

You could then add their £200 offer of "compensation" for loss of enjoyment over the holiday period due to the non-functioning kitchen and general disruption in the house. 

Hopefully they would fold once they get the letter and pay at least most of what you are asking for. These big companies do tend to have a policy of offering as little as possible in the hope you go away, simply because most people are busy and take something for an easier life rather than spending time fighting for more, where you draw the line on that is obviously a personal decision  

boots_babe

@A_Geordie and @the_lunatic_is_in_my_head  -  huge thanks to both of you for taking the time to write such well thought and detailed replies, that is really appreciated.

Firstly just to clear up, the purchase was only kitchen cupboards. Appliances and everything else we bought separately from elsewhere. 

On the question of 'loss of enjoyment', I would strongly say that the delays in getting a functioning kitchen due to the many issues, caused a significant loss of enjoyment. Throughout all of those weeks we were forced to manage with just an airfryer and microwave in a spare bedroom upstairs for cooking, and back-ache inducing washing of plates etc in the bath. We also could not use our dining room or two living rooms, as they were simply full of kitchen units, both the ones waiting to be fitted and also the many faulty ones. So we had to sit in the spare bedroom each evening after dinner, again not very enjoyable.

Whilst I'm not experienced with assessing the 'loss of enjoyment', I'd think that such cramped and limited cooking facilities for so many weeks, along with losing access to most of the ground floor of our house for that period, is a significant loss of enjoyment. But I would be keen to get what is clearly a more experienced view from you on this? You may say none of that would 'count'?

Fitting costs - yes I have a separate receipt for that. At the very least I'd be hoping to get that £1k+ in extra costs back.

Regarding evidence of disposal costs, we had to have an extra skip but that isn't evidenced in a separate receipt as such, what I mean is that we have no proof that the extra skip cost was directly caused by the extra faulty units. We did also have our own trips up and down to the tip after the skips had been removed - because the issues went on over such a long period. Obviously we have no evidencable costs for that though.

I will do as you suggest, and look to draft a letter before action, am sure I can find some good examples to work from. And your combined comments and background references are super helpful, thank you so much. 

A_Geordie

@boots_babe

I would strongly say that the delays in getting a functioning kitchen due to the many issues, caused a significant loss of enjoyment. Throughout all of those weeks we were forced to manage with just an airfryer and microwave in a spare bedroom upstairs for cooking, and back-ache inducing washing of plates etc in the bath. We also could not use our dining room or two living rooms, as they were simply full of kitchen units, both the ones waiting to be fitted and also the many faulty ones. So we had to sit in the spare bedroom each evening after dinner, again not very enjoyable.

I would say that's largely fine, but be careful that whatever you say you don't drift into the possibility that what you are arguing sounds more like distress or inconvenience as opposed to loss of enjoyment of your kitchen. Even legal professionals make the same error so just make sure that you take time to consider and not blur the lines whatever you write.

Whilst I'm not experienced with assessing the 'loss of enjoyment', I'd think that such cramped and limited cooking facilities for so many weeks, along with losing access to most of the ground floor of our house for that period, is a significant loss of enjoyment. But I would be keen to get what is clearly a more experienced view from you on this? You may say none of that would 'count'?

What I've highlighted above is an example of what may be a blurring of the lines between inconvenience and loss of enjoyment. Loss of enjoyment compensation is specific to the subject matter of the contract, which is the supply of your kitchen units for the purposes of kitchen refurbishment, and the loss of use of rooms other than your kitchen could be viewed as invoncenience since the inability to make use of a living or dining room has no bearing on the loss of use of your kitchen. That doesn't mean you can't reference loss of use of the ground floor in your letter before claim or particulars of claim, just make sure it falls under the breach of contract section and not loss of enjoyment. 

On the issue of legal proceedings, the way I see it is that this is likely to be a dispute that will be assigned to the small claims track, meaning that legal costs are not recoverable. Therefore it comes down to the company's appetite to defend a claim against them, which means instructing external lawyers at potentially more cost than the claim itself. From what I have found, DIY Kitchens doesn't employ any in-house solicitors which means if they have to pay an external lawyer to review the claim, gather information and evidence, draft a defence, draft witness statements and finally attend a hearing all at a cost of lets say £250 an hour, and in the knowledge that those costs won't be reocverable, the costs of defending the claim will rack up pretty quickly.

So it may not be commercially viable for DIY Kitchens to defend this all the way and may very well offer a settlement. In short, you could probably claim for a little bit more on the loss of enjoyment side e.g. £500 instead of £200 and still be considered within the reasonable range of compensation that might be awarded.

Anyway, if you want any pointers on the letter before claim or any feedback on what you've written before you send it off, happy to give it a look over if you post it up (with personal info removed)

@the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Thanks @A_Geordie, it was only the time of year that made me wonder, I guess if OP sends an LBA asking for direct losses and adds the company's existing £200 offer on as loss of enjoyment as you say don' ask, don't get, I just wondered if OP had to follow through with small claims would a court would take a dim view of such a request if it was without merit. 

I don't think they would take a dim view, I think most judges would be curious about the claim since it is likely to be a deviation from the usual claims they end up taking on. So long as it is clearly drafted and sufficiently articulated, I would think there's some leeway for litigants in person, and just because the outcome doesn't have the desired result, it can't be considered unreasonable or vexatious. I wouldn't say its a hopeless claim if that's what you're thinking.

boots_babe

Thanks @A_Geordie for helping to explain further. I had been thinking that 'loss of enjoyment' would relate to the fact we lost usage of our ground floor, hence the enjoyment of sitting in a comfortable room each evening and being able to using proper cooking facilities. But from what you've elaborated above I now understand that is irrelevant, it would only be enjoyment of the kitchen itself that will 'count'.

I have drafted an LBA, having not done one before I'm grateful for any critique. I have copied it below:

I am writing formally to notify you that unless this matter is resolved within 14 days from the date of this letter, I intend to commence legal proceedings in the small claims court without further notice.

On 25th July 2024, 5th August 2024 and 10th August 2024 I placed orders with your company for a supply-only kitchen totalling £20,027.27, comprising 114 kitchen unit items, plus additional fitting items. All 3 initial deliveries were delayed from the booked week, and then upon delivery, a significant number of items arrived damaged or defective. Despite multiple replacement attempts, some of those were also faulty.

In total:

• 54 items required replacement due to damage or manufacturing defects
• 9 of these were replacements for already-faulty replacements (or indeed replacements for replacements for replacements)
• 21 additional items were damaged but accepted by us in order to avoid further installation delays
• You originally told us to retain the damaged items and that your delivery driver would collect them. However each time we tried to return them to the various replacement delivery drivers, they refused to collect the faulty items, causing us further inconvenience and disposal costs.
• 6 items were missing completely – including 2 kitchen unit items missing from the original delivery, which we were not informed about and were in fact omitted from your delivery note that we used to cross-check the delivered items. We had a significant wait for these 2 items, and when they arrived, they were both faulty. The replacement items when they eventually arrived were also faulty.
• We were charged for 3 glass drawer upgrades, but on installation found that only 2 drawers were compatible. As there was no option to select quantity at checkout (simply a yes/no tick box for whether you want this particular upgrade) you have charged us for an unnecessary item.

Due to these extensive issues, we incurred substantial extra costs with our kitchen fitter, whose invoice shows additional costs of £1,500 directly attributable to the delays and disruption caused by your supply failures. Despite allowing more than your recommended buffer before between fitting and delivery (first delivery due w.c.4th October, fitter booked 5.5 weeks later on 11th November), the kitchen fitting was not completed until January 2025.

We also had to hire an additional skip solely for the purpose of disposing of the 54 faulty items that you refused to collect, at an additional cost of £340.80.

We have enclosed documented evidence of:

• The original purchase confirmation emails
• An invoice from our fitter showing the additional costs incurred
• An invoice showing the additional skip hire costs
• Photos of each damaged item
• Full correspondence record, including a prior letter sent by recorded delivery to your head office plus an ignored email to yourself, Alf Ellis.

Months after my first 2 attempts at raising a complaint were not responded to, after chasing eventually your customer service team recently offered £200 in compensation. This is wholly inadequate given the scale of the failures and does not even cover the additional fitting costs, let alone the burden of handling 54 faulty items, repeated replacements, and waste disposal.

I am therefore seeking compensation in the total amount of £2090.80 comprising:

• £1,500 for additional fitting costs
• £340.80 for time spent disposing of faulty items and managing replacement process
• £250 nominal compensation for significant time, disruption, and distress (we did not specifically log the time spent, but a conservative estimate would be 100 man hours – based on 2 people for 3 hours each week day evening for 4 weeks. In reality I know we spend much longer but it is impossible to accurately quantify and so I am trying to act fairly and err on the side of caution)
• [Plus: court costs if filed]

Please consider this your final opportunity to resolve the matter. If I do not receive a satisfactory response and full payment within 14 days of the date of this letter, I will initiate proceedings via the Small Claims Court (Money Claim Online) without further notice.

Payment can be made via bank transfer to the following account:

XXX

Or a cheque can be sent to the address above.

 I hope this matter can be resolved without the need for legal action, but I am prepared to proceed if necessary, having exhausted all more amicable routes.

Alderbank

DIY Kitchens generally get very favourable reports on the various forums in MSE, examples such as 
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5897531/diy-kitchens/p1

They are very much at the 'bargain basement' end of the market; their principal boast is that their kitchen units are the cheapest available in the UK.

They give an example of a typical kitchen of 14 units from them costing about £2,000 (that's about £130 a unit) compared with the equivalent cost from Wickes of about £4,000 and Magnet of about £6,000 so they are about half or a third the price of high street competitors.

On that basis your order of 114 units costing twenty thousand pounds sounds humungous.

There are residences which could accommodate this many cabinets but their owners typically do not gut those kitchens to refit them from bargain basement retailers.
Can you confirm that this is just to refit your own domestic kitchen?
It's a pretty big order even for a large restaurant or hotel. It sounds to me like an order to renovate a block of BTL rental apartments. If so you are not really a 'consumer'.

If you are a consumer you are entitled to the £340 for a skip to dispose of faulty items as waste because CRA does expect the trader to bear the costs of collecting and disposing of faulty goods.

You say you have photos of the damaged items. Could you share some of the please?
I agree that as a consumer you would be entitled to the fitting costs of having those items 'unfitted' and replaced if the defect only became manifest after the item had been installed, such as a door closer or drawer runner which broke away from the carcase after a short period of use. But items that were clearly faulty on visual inspection, and that would include door colours or paint finishes which don't conform to contract, should not have been fitted. I don't think even a consumer can claim back the cost of fitting those.