BrighterHomeSolution 

Recently discovered that my elderly father was ripped off by Brighter Homes Solutions Ltd to the tune of £12,000 to have triple glazing installed to his modest four bed home in 2015: just nine (bog standard) windows and a cloakroom, plus two doors. Absolutely criminal.

And the wind is now gusting through the gaps around the frames that they left. The internal quality of finish is appalling.

The short version:
In our case, Brighter Home Solutions were very bad indeed! Poor adherence to agreed timelines, dates, and deliverables. They had poor communication skills/ habits. They did not manage our project and charged us for the non delivery.

We needed a conservatory soon because family were coming to stay with us for a few months. We paid a deposit of £8422.00 and signed a contract on 23/10/2017 and after several calls and emails initiated by ourselves, to chase up and facilitate the progress, by 11/01/2018 Brighter Home Solutions had not even submitted our planning application yet even though drawings had been drawn up and signed by 13/12/17 and the online submission tool was available 24/7/365.

In February, we contacted the GGF, the Citizen's Advice Bureau and Brighter Home Solutions to cancel our purchase / repudiate this contract under the terms of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 as they had breached reasonable care and skill in managing our project, and to try get our deposit back.

We waited until March for a final reply, and found we had to pay £1,790.68 to Brighter Home Solutions for the privileged of being delayed by 5 months and their non delivery of service.

The long version:
We wanted a conservatory as soon as possible as we had family coming over to stay with us for two or three months and without the extra space, the kids and adults would be a bit crowded. We had a call about conservatories, and invited Brighter Home Solutions sales people over to give us an estimated price. We had a price from a few other companies too but the sales person for Brighter Home Solutions was very good and we bought him.

It was a lot of money so we did some house hunting to see what we could get if we spent the extra money moving instead. We could not find a comparable property that would give us the extra space so last year on the 23rd of October we signed a contract with Brighter Home Solutions (Contract Ref: HJL231017/1 ).

A survey was completed 06/11/17, on 29/11/17 we called to Brighter Homes to enquire when the planning application would be submitted. The surveyor sent us an SMS on 30/11/17 (24 day delay) to say he was a bit behind and would have the drawings to us. On 01/12/17 the drawings were emailed to us, but no one told us they had been sent to us and that we needed to sign them. Due to the email being stuck in our junk mail we lost 10 days but when the surveyor contacted us via SMS on the 11/12/17, we signed and sent them on confirming with the surveyor they had been received on 13/12/17.

Although the submission process for our council is electronic, the planning application had still not been submitted to Dacorum Council by 11/01/18 (9 weeks delay). We had paid a big deposit, some £8422.00 hoping it would mean they drive our project. We were always calling them, always chasing things, sending emails....

We contacted the GGF who govern the Conservatory companies for assistance and the Citizen's Advice Bureau for guidance on how to go about cancelling our contract on the basis that Brighter Home Solutions had breached reasonable care and skill in managing our project, and to try get our deposit back.

The following shows the pain we had extracting the deposit from Brighter Home Solutions:

01/02/18 -Contacted GGF to see if they could mediate and encourage comms
02/02/18 -GGF Ms Akinsiku replies asking for more details
03/02/18 -We replied to GGF with details request
05/02/18 -GGF indicate theyare unable to assist but include BH in the email and indicate they have asked BH to consider our case sympathetically.
06/02/18 -Reply to GGF thanking them for their involvement and hope the channels of comms will be open to prevent litigious action
06/02/18 -Email BH cc’ing GGF to see if we can reach a solution
11/02/18 -Although we had still had not comms from Brighter homes. Surveyor Paul Webb contacted us indicating he had heard we wished to cancel and enquiring about the drawings.
13/02/18 -Contact GGF to ask how long is reasonable as still no contact from BH directly
14/02/18 -GGF reply to say they can’t force their member to respond.
14/02/18 -Martin Dean(BH) contacts us apologising for delay but emails blocked by Mail guard-no mention of the recorded delivery letters and asks for our contact details and 24 hours to get back to us
14/02/18 -Reply to Mr Dean with our contact information and who best to contact
20/02/18 -Contact Mr Dean again as no contact in the interim (24 hours has turned into nearly a week)
23/02/18 -Still no contact so rang to speak to him …Unfortunately your receptionist said that you weren't in and was unsure whether you'd be in on Monday. She suggested I call back on Monday to find out if you would be in, I then asked to speak to Customer Services and was told there was no-one who could help.

We have tried to be accommodating, but if we don't receive a response by close of business on Tuesday 27 February 2018, our next correspondence will be our final letter before action.

28/02/18 -Rang again Mr Dean unavailable informed we could only talk to him and he would be in the next day
01/03/18 -Rang again Mr Dean unavailable but call transferred to Simon Dunster as most senior manager on site he said he couldn’t deal with the issue but would get Mr Dean to contact us.
05/03/18 -Mr Dunster contacted us apologising for the delay and service we had encountered and offered us a discount to retain our contract or whether we would like to receive the drawings.
We declined as it is not about the money we have family coming to stay for a lengthy period (part of the reason for the conservatory which will now not be ready in time) so can’t commit to any dates. Given the level of service historically and the way communications have been dealt with during this period of cancellation request, our loss of trust and confidence has increased. The company’s lack of communication and management has only served to exacerbate our concern. We clearly believe that the company is unable to provide reasonable care and skill in managing our project at any stage.

Mr Dunster then said he would give our response to Mr Dean and get back to us on Tuesday 06/03/18.

Phew, then we have a result after all this when we receive a letter dated 14 March stating we will get some £6631.32 back of our original £8422.00 and explaining that reasonable deductions from the deposit to the sum of £1790.68 were made.