Right To Refuse Payment?

[Safety First]

Write to them & explain why you are not paying, that way you will probably avoid it ever getting to court. Ignoring them will only make things difficult.

Second this...;making your position crystal clear.. and yes as others have said tell them also that you will be making a social media stink over this too.
IMHO, it's not a matter of right to do 'x' or 'y', but that your reasonable expectation was competent service, which obviously you have only gained from 2nd contractor. They have not delivered this, so their fee does not have to be delivered in return.
1st Contractor will have to consider if they can claim to have fulfilled their contract- to provide a service that most people would deem reasonable. Their T+C's cannot really function to undermine the main Acts that protect us from poor services/trades. I.e, there is no 'We reserve the right to be crap and get paid' -clause.

 

[durhamplumber]

BG might say they cannot get parts and suggest a replacement boiler but if they don’t/can’t fix it, you don’t pay. Cannot see the problem with that.

Apart from the direct debit you been paying for 10 years,,,and they serviced it,,,and they are lieing, no ..no problem..,!!!..and they want to shaft you extra£ 2k over the odds to replace,...no...perfectly acceptable business practise.

 

[ollski]

I did 20 years at bg and left for the monitoring / soul destroying nature of the job. There was massive pressure for sales but more hives than boiler leads and there was never a company dictate to advise no parts available when they were....if that happens it’s purely on an individual engineers judgement.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Might not be a dictate but it sure is a policy based on their own supply chain which is a rather myopic one at that.

 

[ollski]

Dan their parts supply is second to none, all direct from the manufacturer. If the manufacturer still supply it bg will almost certainly have it in stock at NDC for next day delivery. I never got let down for even the most obscure part ever. If it’s not stocked they will use the normal supply routes. The issues with parts are from individual engineers showing customers lists of obsolete parts on their boiler on the computers and telling them some parts are obsolete without clearly defining which making customers think that they won’t be able to repair it in future when in reality it will be something non functional they will never need. I’ve no love for bg and the collapse of it currently is entirely self inflicted but the parts thing was always engineers dodgy sales tactics rather than at a business level.

 

[Jason42]

Well they sent the bill of £60 today for investigating the boiler!

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Well they sent the bill of £60 today for investigating the boiler!

Did they actually specify what the failed part was, which made the boiler obsolete and unrepairable. or did they just look and say 'no parts'?

 

[Jason42]

No it just said to investigate Baxi Solo bolier. No other details.

 

[Gasguru]

I hope you don't intend to pay it.
You're in a very strong position consumer wise unless you have their T&Cs and they can charge you regardless. I can't see how they could possibly win a court judgement. Have a look at Moneyclaim, it will be tricky for them to fill in the detail box when it comes to charging customers without repairing.
Have you written to them explaining your intention not to pay and giving them evidence of the simple repair that was carried out. I would also back it up with proof of parts availability.