Fan installation problem - who provides the guarantee

[thomaspassmore]

Hi

I wanted some advice. I had a firm install some extractor fans. One of them makes a funny clicking noise so I emailed the firm to ask them to come and fix it. They say that it is the manufacturer who provides the guarantee so it is them who have to come and fix it, not them.

The catch however is that if it proves to not be faulty (according to them) then I have to pay them £100.

It all seems a bit odd - I would have thought the installer was responsible. Does anyone know where I stand from a legal point of view?

Thanks
Tom

 

[big-all]

did you supply the fan or the person who fitted it
your contract is with who ever supplied the fan not the manufacturer

you are not interested in the gtee yet if it is a gtee issue then if they supplied its there responsibility

 

[thomaspassmore]

they supplied it

But I said this to them and they said that only the manufacturer would deal with it. What can i back myself up with?

Thanks for your help!

 

[ban-all-sheds]

The Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982

 

[rjm2k]

If you get no luck out of them and paid by credit card, over £100 you can make a section 75 claim against the card issuer.

 

[thomaspassmore]

They only just invoiced me so i havent actually paid yet
do I have grounds to withhold payment?

 

[skotl]

The Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982

A helpful guide can be found here; http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/supply-of-goods-and-services-act-1982/

But to answer your original question, the goods were supplied by your contractor and so the commercial relationship is between them and you. This is exactly the same situation if you buy an iron from Argos, which then turns out to be faulty - your first port of call is to the supplier / retailer, not the manufacturer.

A faulty device is absolutely 100% a valid reason to withhold payment of the final invoice. Even ignoring the SGSA 1982 (which they can't!) it is perfectly reasonable for the contractor to verify which component has actually failed.
Rectifying the failure will be at their expense, unless they can prove that you contributed to the failure.

You can also bear in mind (not that you're obligated to!) that the contractor will be able to get a replacement unit from their supplier at no cost, as their supplier has the same responsibilities to them as they have to you.

edit: I think you're in good shape re the threat to charge you if no fault is found (which is not an unreasonable approach, per se) because you say they fitted multiple fans. On the assumption that the same model of fan is fitted in another part of your house then you have a very useful comparator to prove there is a problem.

 

[JohnW2]

- your first port of call is to the supplier / retailer, not the manufacturer. ... You can also bear in mind (not that you're obligated to!) that the contractor will be able to get a replacement unit from their supplier at no cost, as their supplier has the same responsibilities to them as they have to you.

What about the contractor's time/labour in inspecting/removing/replacing the defective unit - are they obligated to do that free of charge?

Kind FRegards, John

 

[Iggifer]

no but some companies will let you invoice them for warranty work (not many!) but it saves them having to send out an engineer.

 

[skotl]

- your first port of call is to the supplier / retailer, not the manufacturer. ... You can also bear in mind (not that you're obligated to!) that the contractor will be able to get a replacement unit from their supplier at no cost, as their supplier has the same responsibilities to them as they have to you.

What about the contractor's time/labour in inspecting/removing/replacing the defective unit - are they obligated to do that free of charge?

Kind Regards, John

An interesting question, John.
My answer was based around the question of who is responsible for guaranteeing the supplied goods, and that would be unequivocally the contracted supplier.

If the unit failed, say, two years later and it was out of guarantee then I don't think it's unreasonable that the contractor would get paid to replace it.
If the unit failed one week after installation, or was faulty from the moment it is installed (which seems likely, considering the OP's posts) then I think the contractor has to bear the cost for the labour(*).

It gets a bit more of a grey area if the elapsed time is somewhere between the two. If the unit failed 9 months after installation then the contractor is responsible for replacing the failed unit. As for the labour, I don't know - I suspect a mutually agreeable compromise would be best - maybe "I would normally charge £100 for this, but it's a unit we supplied, so how about we meet in the middle at £50?".
Reasonableness is what is called for, I think.

(* there have been multiple debates in the Trade Talk section about "If my contractor charges £100 an hour that means that he makes £50k a year!" and "My contractor charged me £85 for a wiffler and I know I can buy that from Screwfix for £70!!", both of which are countered by arguments that the contractor needs to pay for diesel, insurance, unpaid visits to price jobs that he doesn't get and rectifying issues with goods and services that he has supplied)

 

[JohnW2]

What about the contractor's time/labour in inspecting/removing/replacing the defective unit - are they obligated to do that free of charge?

An interesting question, John. ... If the unit failed, say, two years later and it was out of guarantee then I don't think it's unreasonable that the contractor would get paid to replace it. ... If the unit failed one week after installation, or was faulty from the moment it is installed (which seems likely, considering the OP's posts) then I think the contractor has to bear the cost for the labour(*). ... It gets a bit more of a grey area if the elapsed time is somewhere between the two.

At first sight, that all sounds very reasonable, but I think that it starts getting more complicated if one thinks more deeply.

Firstly, if it is agreed that the unit was working perfectly satisfactorily when it was installed, if it subsequently fails (even if 'early') 'under warranty' (whatever period of time that may be) it would seem a bit rotten to expect the contractor to provide free labour to replace it, given that they were total blameless as far as the failure was concerned.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, although it's probably no big deal when we're talking about extractor fans, what if the nature of the product in question were such that vast amounts of labour would be involved in replacing it ('buried beneath concrete or inside walls', or whatever!). It would then again seem pretty rotten, even if the failure were 'early', to expect the contractor who fitted it to provide a very large amount of free labour to replace it, wouldn't it?

Kind Regards, John

 

[thomaspassmore]

Luckily (or not) in my case the extractor fan always made this odd rattle so I think it was always like this.

 

[Johnmelad]

If the fault is due to the installation not being done correctly, the contractor must remove faulty item and replace, free of charge.

If it goes wrong after installation due to a manufacturing fault, then the removal of said item, and it's replacement must be paid for by the customer.

 

[JohnW2]

Luckily (or not) in my case the extractor fan always made this odd rattle so I think it was always like this.

IF it's accepted that the rattle reprsesents a fault, and IF the person who fitted it will admit that it has always rattled, then I would agree that it's probably all down to him/her to rectify the situation at no colst to you. However, there are two big IFs in that sentence!!

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

If the fault is due to the installation not being done correctly, the contractor must remove faulty item and replace, free of charge. If it goes wrong after installation due to a manufacturing fault, then the removal of said item, and it's replacement must be paid for by the customer.

If considerable work/cost is involved in the removal/replacement, could the manufacturer be successfully sued for those costs, if they became necessary because of an unreasonably early failure of their product?

Kind Regards, John