Written Guarantee

[garlicbread]

I have been asked to give a customer a written guarantee for the parts/accessories i have supplied. Can anyone recommend a good template or what i should include, and what is a reasonable amount to give i.e time wise for the guarantee.
Had a look on line but not much to go off.
Any info appreciated.
cheers
GB

 

[HERTS P&D]

All parts supplied come with 1 year's guarantee.

Labour guaranteed for 100 days.

Is that any good?

Andy

 

[Taylortwocities]

All parts come with the guarantee provided by the manufacturer. That may be a year, it may be less.

If you offer more than the makers warranty then you are exposing yourself (Oh! Matron).

If you are a member of one of the CPS schemes then your workmanship is covered for as long as the CPS scheme says it is (NAPIT is 6 years).

 

[JohnW2]

Labour guaranteed for 100 days.

If someone was offering to do electrical work for me and only felt confident to guarantee their workmanship for 100 days, I'm not at all sure that I would feel inclined to engage them. Properly undertaken electrical work ought to last for a hell of a lot longer than that!

Kind Regards, John

 

[winston1]

Under EU rules all parts are guaranteed for 2 years no matter what the manufacturer says. Under the Sale of Goods Act the customer is protected for 6 years and any claims are against the retailer (you in this case).

 

[NotAgainFFS]

I was recently told by Apple that The EU law is for consumers only. If a business buys the goods then the statutory 12 months applies.

 

[PrenticeBoyofDerry]

I would only guarantee my work, it is the responsibility of the manufacturer to provide warranties for their equipment.
That is what I would be putting in writing, otherwise every time there is an appliance fault issue you would be getting a phone call requiring your immediate attention FOC!
When I supply parts/appliances/equipment etc.. to clients, I state that any operational issue with them should be directed to the manufacturer, I pass them the warranties on completion and tell them to register them to activate the warranty.

 

[JohnW2]

Under EU rules all parts are guaranteed for 2 years no matter what the manufacturer says. Under the Sale of Goods Act the customer is protected for 6 years and any claims are against the retailer (you in this case).

Am I right in saying (genuine question - I'm not sure of the answer) that one can invoke the Sale of Goods Act even at a time when a manufacturer's warranty applies? - i.e. if an item shows itself to be 'unfit for purpose' just a few days or weeks after purchase, one can immediately make a claim against the retailer under the SoGA?

Kind Regards, John

 

[winston1]

Under EU rules all parts are guaranteed for 2 years no matter what the manufacturer says. Under the Sale of Goods Act the customer is protected for 6 years and any claims are against the retailer (you in this case).

Am I right in saying (genuine question - I'm not sure of the answer) that one can invoke the Sale of Goods Act even at a time when a manufacturer's warranty applies? - i.e. if an item shows itself to be 'unfit for purpose' just a few days or weeks after purchase, one can immediately make a claim against the retailer under the SoGA?

Kind Regards, John

Yes.

 

[winston1]

I was recently told by Apple that The EU law is for consumers only. If a business buys the goods then the statutory 12 months applies.

Your customer is the consumer, you are the retailer. EU rules apply for your customer.

 

[winston1]

I would only guarantee my work, it is the responsibility of the manufacturer to provide warranties for their equipment.
That is what I would be putting in writing, otherwise every time there is an appliance fault issue you would be getting a phone call requiring your immediate attention FOC!
When I supply parts/appliances/equipment etc.. to clients, I state that any operational issue with them should be directed to the manufacturer, I pass them the warranties on completion and tell them to register them to activate the warranty.

That would not stand up in court. Your customers contract is with you not the manufacturer.

 

[ericmark]

It is interesting as to who has to do what. Years ago we reconditioned alternators for cars and if we sold it over the counter we charged £18 but if we fitted it we charged £22 plus fitting and I was told the extra £4 was to allow for the cost of removing the faulty alternator and replacing.

That was the whole idea of trade and retail price all items supplied and fitted would be charged at full retail price to cover the cost of work replacing it.

The old idea of giving a warranty or guarantee was not to help the customer but to help the supplier where they could use it to limit their liability.

Selection of material clearly has a great bearing on who is responsible. It a customer wants special gold switches and to replace them would require it to be specially made then it's up to them to deal with the manufacturer for faults. But if your given a free hand to select the switch you wanted and you select cheap rubbish then when it fails it down to you.

What would be interesting is when a garage sold a British Leyland car before BL stopped trading would they have been responsible for warranty work after BL went to the wall?

One can't really guarantee any item which has become obsolete. You can take care of the returning to manufacturer faulty items but you can only act as a go between.

Buy something from Aldi or Lidi which is on promotion and if it fails and you return it all they do is refund the money.

Now that would be good when a light switch becomes faulty you say he's the £5 refunded for the switch.

Abuse is the other problem. Sending Morse code to your friend using a light switch is not really covered by warranty it's not normal use.

So to say parts are covered by manufactures warranty. Installation will be covered by "Joe Blogs" until one month after the first scheduled EICR and any repairs will also be covered until on month after the first scheduled EICR after the repair. Where labour is required to change parts supplied by "Joe Blogs" covered by manufactures warranty if not covered by manufacturer it will be charged at a concessionary rate of 1/3 of normal rate.

One could write reams on conditions but to me it needs to be simple.

 

[JohnW2]

One could write reams on conditions but to me it needs to be simple.

As I understand it, in terms of the Sale of Goods Act, I think it already is pretty simple. If a 'retailer' (and I think that includes an electrician who 'supplies and fits' a part) supplies to a customer a part which proves to be 'not of merchantable quality' (aka 'unfit for purpose') (e.g. failed fairly early), then that customer has a right under the SoGA to claim against the retailer (electrician). Whether the retailer can then get the manufacturer to deal with the faulty part under warranty is a separate matter.

I do sometimes wonder about those electricians one sees/hears moaning about customers who want to source their own parts ... maybe they are more interested in their customers' interests than their own

Kind Regards, John

 

[SimonH2]

As I understand it, in terms of the Sale of Goods Act, I think it already is pretty simple. If a 'retailer' (and I think that includes an electrician who 'supplies and fits' a part) supplies to a customer a part which proves to be 'not of merchantable quality' (aka 'unfit for purpose') (e.g. failed fairly early), then that customer has a right under the SoGA to claim against the retailer (electrician).

Correct.
Furthermore, the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations specify a number of things which may not be excluded by contract terms. So taking the example above, if a contract attempted to limit liability for faulty workmanship to 100 days then this would almost certainly be automatically void by law.

However, it's probably not as bad as some people may be thinking. The law says that the supplier is required to do one of three things :
1) effect a repair
2) replace the item
3) provide a refund
A replacement does not have to be identical i the original is no longer available. Anda refund can take account of use the consumer had had - so if something would normally only be expected to last (say) 10 years, and it fails after (say) 3 years, then AIUI it's acceptable to offer a 70% refund.


For the BL car example, if the warranty was provided by BL then it would die with the company. However, the dealer would still be responsible for the statutory rights under SOGA - which would almost certainly be less than that offered by the warranty.

Under SOGA, the "life" isn't specified beyond "reasonable". What is reasonable would have to take into account the nature of the product. For example, if you paid £30 for a high end pan and the handle dropped off after 3 years then that would probably not be reasonable and you'd have a claim; but if you'd paid £1 at the market then you wouldn't really have grounds for complaint ! There is an absolute limit of 6 years based on that being the time you have to bring a civil action under English law.

I do sometimes wonder about those electricians one sees/hears moaning about customers who want to source their own parts ... maybe they are more interested in their customers' interests than their own

I suspect they've never thought about that !

 

[ericmark]

There is an absolute limit of 6 years based on that being the time you have to bring a civil action under English law.

That is rather interesting as under IET recommendations a domestic property is given an electrical installation condition report (EICR was PIR) every 10 years so it there is fault installation it is likely to be 10 years before the home owner finds out about the defect.