Deposit on Furniture

Saint_Mel

Apologies if this is in the wrong forum, just a bit of a "what can I do,
if anything" rant/post.

Myself and herself recently bought a house in a new development
and went around to a few places wlooking at furniture and all that jazz.

After trapsing around the country (well a small part of the country) we found
a place for the bedding and so we decided to get the bedroom stuff for the 3
bedrooms in this particular shop.

We had a provisional completion date from the builders of July so we paid a
deposit and told them the date we'd been given, provisionally.

Needless to say the development is still going on but the bedding place never
contacted us to pay the balance. We got a new completion date recently and
so we went to pay the balance on the furniture yesterday. Well, my girlfriend
did as the shop is in the town she works in.

Was told that because we hadnt paid the balance sooner and the provisional
date we'd given was long gone they had sold one of the bedroom sets and
the model/design we had picked out was now out of stock.

After looking around the shop, my girlfriend spotted the exact same bed on
display as we'd picked out, even though the shop assistant/possible owner,
had said they were all sold out and now out of stock.

Heel of the hunt was that they sold us the display model, which was priced
€100 less then when we had picked it, and refunded the money for the
matching bedside lockers as they were out of stock and "impossible to get
anymore" (according to shop).

I would have been fit to go ballistic at the shop owner but as I wasnt there
the girlfriend just paid up the balance (minus the €100 difference in price), to
make sure the bed wasnt sold on, and accepted the refunded locker money.

Now, I was fuming because we had paid a deposit on items that they in turn
sold on to someone else.

Their arguement was that we hadnt paid the balance and the date we had
given them was long past.

My arguement is that the date we gave them was provisional, which was
even written on the order, and more to the point they had not contacted us
to pay the balance. Instead they just sold what I see as our furniture.

Am I in the right/wrong and is there anything that can be done about it?

Any advice or comments appreciated.

Ruu_Old

Mewved from AH, probably best here.

Northside Punk

check your terms and conditions,

they should have contacted you about clearing the balance when the furniture arrived into stock,
afaik you are right in that the furniture is yours and at the end of the day you should have been contacted but i think its up to the shop if anything gets done

wyndham

I'd say they are in the right but it's a very murky area. You missed the agreed date for completion of sale and didn't contact them. In fairness they couldn't keep the furniture forever on the strength of the deposit. What % of the price did you give as deposit?

mcaul

The shop has repaid the deposit on the lockers and you got a display bed and the items for the other 2 rooms? - If so I think you should be reasonably happy.

Also the shop has had to store your products for an addition few months and has not charged you staorage fees. In reality as you had not contacted them by the provisional date you provided they could have kept the deposit and not supplied you with anything. Obviously they are quite reasonable and did not keep your deposit and also supplied most of your order without surchages.

If you have not burnt your relationship with the store, you could ask for the suppplier's name and contact them for a list of other retailers that stock that range of furniture in Ireland.

tbh

I understand why you are angry, but as a neutral, I'd have to say you should have rung the shop around the original provisional date just to check.

Gillo

Have to say I agree with mcaul and tbh, in fairness you messed the shop around also.

Saint_Mel

mcaul wrote:

If you have not burnt your relationship with the store, you could ask for the suppplier's name and contact them for a list of other retailers that stock that range of furniture in Ireland.

Cheers for all the replies, I know we are partly to blame as we only had
deposit down and no definate dates, but it was just a pain in the @rse to
pay up and then be told they they'd sold on without ever contacting us.

Havent burnt bridges at all. Actually asked for the suppliers details etc to
do exactly that but they refused to give it. Just said that they order then
in from Scandanavia.

Actually heard a similiar story from someone who bought furniture in the
shop down the road from where we bought ours!


Incenently, similiar situation with the sitting room furniture. Only difference
(apart from being a different shop and different town) was that they rang
us for an updated completion date so they could re-jig storage. We went in
straight away, paid the balance and they now have no problem storing it.

With the bedroom place we could have actually paid the entire cost up front
but they talked us into just paying the deposit to keep things!

Ah well, the "joys" of buying a house!!!

Sidney77

the shop is meant to call the customer when the goods arrive in