Land of leather Usage charge

[chudlt]

Can anyone please advice. I purchased a LOL sofa in Feb 2005 for £899. The leather has started to peel. LOL have offered £200 compensation or a replacement sofa. If I want to replace they are asking for a usage fee from me of £549 for the time I have had the sofa. Can they do this legally? Is the amount reasonable. Thanks for any help.

[flyingdoc]

is there any kind of guarantee on the sofa?

[chudlt]

No, sofa is 3.5 years old.

[Darren007]

How did you pay for sofa? Credit card, finance?

 

Item is not suitable for use or fit for purpose and therefore quote Sale of Goods Act. A sofa should last longer than 3.5 years.

 

Look up in Forums. Do not offer to pay usage fee. The fact that they are offering you £200 is evidence that item is not fit for use.

[Bookworm]

Sofa is fit for use, it is however not of satisfactory quality. Which has no relevance to the usage charge, which they are perfectly entitled to apply, allowing for the amount of time OP has had use of the sofa.

 

I do however think that £549 is ridiculously high for a £899 3.5 yr old sofa. I am in the process of doing the same with a 3 yrs TV, and Grattan has applied a 40% usage fee, which seemed a bit steep.

 

It all boils down to how long a sofa is expected to last in relation to is price. If I were you, I'd argue that a sofa that expensive should last at least 10 years, and therefore argue that:

£899 / 10 = £89.90

£89.90 x 3.5 (yrs) = £314.65, and therefore I would stand my ground and say that you will only accept a deduction of a minimum of, say £350 to go towards the purchase of a new sofa. ;-)

 

Let us know how you get on.

[chudlt]

Many thanks

[chudlt]

Just spoke to LOL and they agreed !!!! that the Usage charge was rather high. Anyway after a friendly polite conversation (important to remember) They have agreed to lower the usage charge to £300. I think this is reasonable for 44 months use. Thanks for all the help.

[Bookworm]

Brilliant.