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What are your rights as a consumer if the sofa just purchased is defective?

A sofa is probably one of the most expensive items to buy when furnishing a home. These days, most sofas cost more than £500, in some cases, over £1,000. With this in view, it’s wise to consider your purchase very carefully, not just for style, colour, and design, but also for workmanship, after-sales service, and your rights should the sofa prove to be faulty.

Of course, if you buy a sofa ‘off the peg’ from a store, where you have the opportunity to inspect it before you pay for it, it is important that you check it over for faults. Nowadays, however, it is highly unlikely that you’ll be able to buy the actual sofa you see on display. Instead, you will be expected to order it, and wait for delivery. You may order it online, without seeing it ‘in the flesh’ until delivery. If this is the case, check the sofa whilst the delivery crew is still present. You will be able to note any faults, and reject the piece if desired, informing the crew, and the retailer, of your decision, and the reasons for it. However, it is impossible to check every square inch of such a large item, when it’s just been delivered, so, if you find a problem later, your consumer rights come into play.

The Sale of Goods Act 1979 states that ‘items must be of satisfactory quality, fit for the purpose for which it is intended and safe’. If you find that the condition of your new sofa breaches any of these counts, you can reject it and either ask the retailer for a replacement, or a full refund. The retailer may try and tell you that you should contact the manufacturer of the sofa, but your contract is with the retailer; his contract is with his manufacturer/supplier, with whom he will have to take the matter up, once he has replaced the sofa, or refunded the money to you. Remember, the responsibility to you, the customer, lies with the retailer.

If your retailer proves un co-operative, find out if he is a member of a furniture retailers’ association, and approach them with the problem, or, if that is also unhelpful, you can, as a last resort, contact your local Trading Standards office (the number will be in Yellow Pages), or even start a claim in the Small Claims Court at your nearest County Court (again, the number will be in the telephone directory).