Help, a guarantee needed today

A true story of someone who wanted to sell her house, found her purchasers would not complete without a guarantee for her new windows, and the double glazing company had gone but....she had to exchange today!

It all starts one Friday morning...

Dear Bonnie

Firstly, I just want to thank you for all the help you've given me over the last few days over what is a stressful time for me anyway.

I had hoped that would be the end of the saga, but I have a buyer who is unwilling to exchange unless he gets some kind of confirmation of guarantee on my windows which TWK installed for me last year.

As TKW have since gone into liquidation, my buyer is looking for confirmation that should there be any problems with any of the windows that any works/repairs required will be honoured by Masterframe as the manufacturer.

The windows installed were five sash type in total, installed 20th May 2003 here at T'ham. I paid in the region of £5k (I don't have my paperwork on me at the office, and I'm desperately trying to do this before my sale falls through (and you go on holiday!)).

I have managed to get a retrospective Building Certification through the Council yesterday and had hoped that that would be enough, sadly not!

I had a long chat with L from TKW on Tuesday as he is also doing some works where my parents live. I know he's very sorry that I've been left with all of this and I feel sure he would do whatever he could to help me.

However, I realise it's impossible for him, so I'm praying that Masterframe can help me.

I hope Masterframe can provide me with some form of reassurance for my buyer.

If so, I'd appreciate either a note via email; or fax to 0208 (til 5 pm today only).

I will be home after that on a different fax number, but hopefully if you're able to help me today I can fax something directly to my solicitor.

Kindest regards

F K



OUR RESPONSE sent by the sales office - You can go back to the original letter


Dear F,

What a predicament, lets see how we can help.

First off the bad news, irrespective of intentions, contractually the guarantees lie with the installation company, ours lie with the installer and ourselves against product failure, (legally we have other duties of care that extend to you but that's not the issue here).

Second a reminder that masterframe is not a "double glazing company", hopefully we are much better than that.

We do not install windows, we specialise in making PVC sash, selling them onto trade installation companies ("Double glazing companies" who generally promise the earth, then go out of business, or start up again leaving a trail of unhappy customers, with worthless guarantees). We feel this practice should stop, and have started a scheme whereby we can offer better protection to reassure certain customers, as explained below.

I understand that TKW have bought a number of windows over the years, and genuinely sorry to learn of their demise. Whilst we cannot recall any customer complaints to us about the way they fitted our windows, we cannot be certain that they (or indeed any trade installer), followed our fitting instructions correctly, so its not possible for us to guarantee other peoples work that we have neither seen, inspected or can rely upon.

HOWEVER as our customer charter states, " we want to be known as the most reliable, honourable and trusted supplier of sliding sash windows in the UK",. To this end we are happy to reassure you and the new owners that we would extend the installer guarantees to them. The only exception is if we find the problem has been caused by an installation fault, (it could be upside down for all we know), so we could not be expected to take on the refitting of the window!

This means that faulty products will be covered.

In addition we would offer advice and suggestions to your new owner, if the window were upside down!

We do have a service engineer ourselves for the odd job or could ensure that another company charged a fair and reasonable price for other works, thereby being certain that rouge companies do not over charge.

I hope this goes some way to helping you resolve this situation.

For future reference, we do underwrite the guarantees of jobs installed by our Bygone Preferred Installers, (BPI's).

Where these installers have attended our training centre, and contracted to install windows in accordance with our instructions, we can be better assured that the job is done well. In return, we stand both the product and their installations, real assurance that Bygone Collection clients know they get a double guarantee.

We would be happy to advise your new owner, (and any one else that you feel might appreciate this fresh approach) of their nearest BPI.

Please ask the new owners to register their details with our office PA direct line 01376 534101, so we can issue a letter to cover these points, quoting AB1004

I do hope this goes some way to reassure your new owners, and closes the issue for you, good luck with the exchange.

We remain

Alan Burgess

MD



The happy ending

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!

Will you also please extend my thanks to Alan - it's guys like him that put other's to shame and I wish there were more like him (seriously).

Have a damned good holiday, we should be fine now

Kind regards

F