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The Electrician & Trading Standards.

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Mornin' All,

                    A potential customer has reported me to the Local Trading Standards Dept.


The local Trading Standards Officer has written to me stating that I need to provide a written leaflet to all of my customers about their "Right to Cancel."


Simply, I went to do an urgent repair and was not allowed to continue. I was asked to leave as it was getting late in the day. I did make some progress on the job and left things working that were not working before. I left without payment but later sent in an invoice for my lost time. That is when the customer contacted the Trading Standard Dept.


The trading Standards officer sent me various emailed documents about Rights to Cancel a Contract. He is not taking any action on this occasion as I have not been reported before.


This mater is covered by The Consumer Contracts (Information, cancellation & Additional Charges) Regulations 2013.


After having read through the document carefully I discovered a get out of jail clause. This applies.


"Contracts where the consumer has specifically requested the trader to call to carry out urgent repairs or maintenance" apply and there is NO RIGHT TO CANCEL.


There I rest my case.


Be warned, have you got a pile of the leaflets for your customers?


Bye.


Z.






Parents
  • 0
    Roy,

    Fully agree on the potential problems. For our extension we had an architect/surveyor draw up the plans and then retained him as project manager to oversee the works. It added about 10% to the cost but paid dividends in preventing issues as he made sure the contract was right at the beginning. There were a few variations where we asked for something extra but we were careful and he told us it was the least over-run contract he had been involved in. He also monitored the progress and kept the builder honest (which is not to say he wouldn't have stayed honest anyway). My only issue was the electricians who were competent-ish but wired a two way switch arrangement for two sets of kitchen lights leaving one set two way switched and the other just switched on and off by one of the switches. Their solution involved digging channels up a wall and running extra cables in the underfloor space above. My solution was to tell them to tell them "take one of the switches off, put that wire there, put that wire there, try it"....."oh look, it works!"

    Working for an engineering consultancy our attitude is that the contract is to protect both parties. If the situation ends up in court, nobody wins (except the lawyers). If the customer believes that the price is too high, the solution is not to proceed and then refuse to pay but rather to find somebody else who will do the job within their budget (and best of luck with that) or to discuss with their preferred contractor how the cost can be limited.

    Alasdair
Reply
  • 0
    Roy,

    Fully agree on the potential problems. For our extension we had an architect/surveyor draw up the plans and then retained him as project manager to oversee the works. It added about 10% to the cost but paid dividends in preventing issues as he made sure the contract was right at the beginning. There were a few variations where we asked for something extra but we were careful and he told us it was the least over-run contract he had been involved in. He also monitored the progress and kept the builder honest (which is not to say he wouldn't have stayed honest anyway). My only issue was the electricians who were competent-ish but wired a two way switch arrangement for two sets of kitchen lights leaving one set two way switched and the other just switched on and off by one of the switches. Their solution involved digging channels up a wall and running extra cables in the underfloor space above. My solution was to tell them to tell them "take one of the switches off, put that wire there, put that wire there, try it"....."oh look, it works!"

    Working for an engineering consultancy our attitude is that the contract is to protect both parties. If the situation ends up in court, nobody wins (except the lawyers). If the customer believes that the price is too high, the solution is not to proceed and then refuse to pay but rather to find somebody else who will do the job within their budget (and best of luck with that) or to discuss with their preferred contractor how the cost can be limited.

    Alasdair
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