INDUSTRYNEWS
GGF CALLS ON HELP FROM INDUSTRY
TO CHANGE CONSUMER BILL
The Glass and Glazing Federation (GGF) is
calling on the industry to provide examples
of ‘consumer(s) successfully rejecting
all the windows/doors under a contract
without any reasonable justification’, as
part of its proposal to amend the Consumer
Rights Bill and protect window and door
companies from the ‘abuse’ of the ‘right to
reject’ concept.
Under the new Consumer Rights Bill, if
a product is found to be faulty, for example,
within a new installation of several windows,
the consumer will have the right to reject all
the windows for a fault on just one, within a
default 30 days, and get a full refund.
As a result, the GGF is concerned that there
will be ‘an increase in consumers rejecting all
the newly installed windows in the house to
get free windows, or use it as a lever to get
money off their bill’.
The Department for Business, Innovation &
Skills (BIS) currently believes that consumers
should ‘retain their longstanding right to reject
all the goods under a contract where only
some are faulty, which protects consumers
who have lost all confidence in the goods’, (for
example, because the faults presenting in some
of the windows were suggestive of generally
‘shoddy’ workmanship).
The GGF, however, believes that this current
position is ‘unreasonable and damaging to
traders’, leaving them vulnerable to ‘vexatious
consumers’. As a result, it has proposed to BIS
that there should be an amendment to the Bill
so that the consumer may only reject that part
of the product, or the faulty product itself, and
not the remaining non-faulty products.
The Federation believes that there is, in
practice, ‘a significant level of abuse of the
right to reject by consumers’ and is calling
on window and door companies to ‘provide
evidence of consumers successfully rejecting
all of the goods under a contract, without any
reasonable justification and on a significant
scale’.
If you have any examples of such, you can
help by emailing the details and a description
of what happened to Brian Smith, GGF
director of Home Improvement, at
[email protected]
www.ggf.org.uk
Revamped Green Deal
launches this month
The government’s revamp of the
controversial Green Deal, the
Green Deal Home Improvement
Fund - providing grants of up to
£7,600 against energy efficiency
measures such as insulation,
new boilers and double
glazing – will be launched this
month.
This replaces the original Green
Deal under which households
borrowed money to fund
improvements and repaid it
through their energy bills. Takeup of the latter was disappointing
– despite a £125m cashback
incentive – and it was widely
criticised for its complexity and
cost.
The new scheme, which
reimburses up to 75 per
cent of the cost of qualifying
improvements provided certain
conditions are met, is also
available to private or social
landlords.
‘available to private
or social landlords’
In order to claim the money,
householders must first obtain a
Green Deal Assessment Report at
a cost of £100-£150, or provide
an energy performance certificate
less than two years old. They can
then apply to the fund to carry
out two improvem V