What are my rights on very slow delivery of a kitchen from homebase?

Just wondering about my statutary rights on delivery of a kitchen. We bought one from Homebase last February, and it's been a long sage since, but the bottom line is we still don't have our kitchen. In the latest round, they promised ten days to a fortnight from the beginning of May, but a lot of time has passed since then. I'm still hearing the same promises, and am losing faith

Anyone have a similar experience and get it resolved? How?

Don't know about Ireland, but over here in UK if you write to them saying that "time is of the essence" and give them a fair date in which to deliver, then that forms part of of the contract and if delivery is not made by that date then contract may be repudiated.

Take them to the small claims court if the matter is not resolved in say 10 days.

A lot smaller than a kitchen, I know but here's my tale for what it's worth. I ordered a dishwasher from b&q a few years ago, was told it would take 4 weeks to deliver. 8 weeks passed, no dishwasher and no confirmed date of delivery....so I cancelled the order and was refunded the money I'd paid in full.

Small Claims Court claim limit is €2K in case the kitched cost more than this.

I'd go into the branch, (pref. on a Sat morning!) and keep speaking to higher and higher personnel until I got what I wanted - either my kitchen or a refund. Does it say on your order form when delivery is expected? If so, that surely forms a contract on their part. They haven't upheld their part of the bargain and you've been minus your cash for the last 14 weeks - could have earned you a tidy sum in interest over the same time period!

Thanks people. I've tried the Saturday morning thing, but quickly hit the ceiling of available senior people, and got a long story about their systems, freak coincidences of delivery windows etc. Everyone we dealt with was nice enough, but we were getting absolutely nowhere!!

I reckon we may be headed for the small claims court. That also sounds like good advice to drop them a letter, thanks

You shouldn't need to go to the SCC. They have not delivered the order in the spcfiied time. You need to go in and cancel the order and get any money paid so far returned. If they start going on about refund policies stop them in thier tracks and tell them that refund polices do not apply until a transaction has been comleted, you are simply canceling the order due to delays in homebase operations. Get a good speaker to come with you if you are shy about putting the foot down.

Mouldy said:

You shouldn't need to go to the SCC. They have not delivered the order in the spcfiied time. You need to go in and cancel the order and get any money paid so far returned. If they start going on about refund policies stop them in thier tracks and tell them that refund polices do not apply until a transaction has been comleted, you are simply canceling the order due to delays in homebase operations. Get a good speaker to come with you if you are shy about putting the foot down.

Click to expand...

All well and good, but they can simply ignore your position and the only recourse is the SCC.

Both true

they told us they were getting a delivery tomorrow (Thursday) but didn't know if it included our near-mythical kitchen. We're giving them til Friday, then we'll see where we have to go with it.

Will keep you posted ...

We ordered a kitchen from them last July, it was delivered by early August. Although when you do get it, be really careful you check everything off your parts list as it arrives. We did do this, but our clever salesman had left little items off the orders list as he said 'I won't charge you for that part', so ultimately we never received them. It was very annoying as he had them in his design and stated we would receive them.

I got a courtesy call from Homebase a couple of weeks later and the lady was really nice, said she would sort it out for us, but that was the last I heard from them. 10% off my eye, I think they mean 10% taken off your actual order for their gain...


G

That's really very similar to our experience, G. Must be a systematic thing with Homebase.

Anyway, allegedly, the second half of our kitchen is being delivered on Monday next, only four and a half months after we paid for it, so here's hoping ....

Hopefully your issue is nearly resolved skillage but if it isn't... as I mentioned on a separate thread on a separate matter, the threat of "accumulating costs" can often resolve these things. For example if you had booked a skip to take away your old kitchen and had a cancellation fee that you were going to send to Homebase. Ditto with your kitchen installers, maybe they were also going to charge you for the delays? If you know what I mean.

I had a similar problem with a delivery of furniture last year from Clerys -- we were moving into our first home and when I was informed for the second time that there would be a delay I told them I would expect some kind of three-piece to be delivered on moving day to keep us going until our proper suite was available. Lo and behold they were able to get us our proper suite delivered for moving day.

I think you'vedone well to last this long! I think ACA's idea of an agressive arrival on a saturday morning! Its not a nice hing to have to do but I'd imagine with your level of frustration you would be well fired up. At that stage I wouldn't accept any sort of promise. Have you documented your dealings with them; order date,letters and other correspondance etc? Get all "promises" in writing on their headed paper and be insistent!