‘John Lewis sent a cowboy to fit dream £26k kitchen’

QLast year my elderly parents spent £ 26,000, which is a significant portion of their life savings, on a fully fitted kitchen from John Lewis. They were intending to celebrate the end of my mum’s breast cancer treatment and chose a reputable company they could rely on to supply and install the kitchen and flooring with minimal stress. They now bitterly regret their choice.

Installation started on Sept 19 last year and was due to last two weeks. But four months later, the installation is still ongoing. There have been myriad problems, some of which remain unresolved. My parents are now both struggling with stress, so I have taken over communication with John Lewis. I cannot, try as I might, get anyone there to take accountability for finishing the installation. There have been so many issues it’s hard to know where to begin.

After they first signed the contract my parents were disappointed when they were told they had to wait several months before the kitchen works could start, despite the contract including a six to eight- week time frame. However, they were reassured that the allocated fitter was their “best”, and “worth waiting for”.

By the end of September some of the kitchen units were installed, however the appliances were not yet connected and the worktop could not be installed as the wrong colour glue was supplied. Some plastering had been done. At this stage my mother was positive. When I messaged from my honeymoon to ask how the new kitchen was going, she replied: “Oh my. It is amazing even though it’s not finished and they are on holiday for 10 days. I don’t want to use anything and spoil it. It is certainly my dream kitchen.”

But things descended from there. My mother’s regular decorator arrived to paint the kitchen and was shocked to see the quality of the plastering which had been done by John Lewis’s fitter. On Oct 5 a John Lewis installation manager visited the site and denied there was a problem with lumpy plastering. It was patched up.

Then, on Oct 11, someone from John Lewis called to see if my mother was happy with her kitchen. The fitter had reported the job as being complete, save for one damaged door which needed to be replaced.

In reality there were four damaged doors with horrible-looking chips, a broken electrical socket, no electricity to the gas hob, an extractor fan fitted incorrectly and hanging on the wall, and no sealant around the sink or joins of the worktop and units.

On Oct 16 an electrician came to connect the igniter on the gas hob. He left without completing the job, explaining he was only being paid for an hour, which wasn’t long enough. Then there were issues with the electrics which my mother was told was a pre- existing problem, even though it was never picked up on the “survey” John Lewis conducted before the installation.

Then it was November and after many weeks of asking, John Lewis arranged for someone to connect the electrics to the igniter on the hob. He completed this work but alerted my mother to another problem with the electrics. When he did a check from the board it indicated that there was a break in the circuit somewhere. He explained that this should have been picked up by the survey or by the electrician who was doing the electrics for the kitchen.

On Nov 6 the four damaged doors were replaced. My mother pointed out two more damaged cupboard doors. Then in mid-November, a heating engineer checked the boiler and was horrified to see it had been tightly boxed in a cupboard. Someone from John Lewis visited and apologised for the “difficult and challenging journey” my parents had had and promised to get the kitchen “to where it always should have been”. They took detailed notes and pictures of the outstanding issues.

These included the need to replace a further five damaged kitchen doors, checking that the extractor fan was working properly and checking if the two electrical sockets behind the panel in the boiler cupboard were plated before that was fitted. He also promised to source the gas and electrical safety certificates, which were missing.

Then my parents went on holiday, where my father suffered a near-fatal medical condition. He had life-saving surgery, but needed to focus on recovering. Finishing the kitchen promptly was imperative. However, by this point it was nearly Christmas and then things went quiet over the festive period.

As it stands my parents still have no gas safety certificate, a broken socket and incomplete circuit from the board, and no electrical certificate for the gas hob igniter or the new sockets. Parts of the kitchen are already starting to fail: several of the cupboards are badly chipped, making them look old. The tap has also seized up. We find ourselves stuck in the middle of tradesmen blaming each other for the failings. They stand there and identify even more issues with the work already done.

The kitchen is not fit for purpose, and we fear the job will never be completed. – KG, via email

Dear Reader

AWith a price tag of £26,000, this was not just a bog- standard kitchen. It was supposed to be your parents’ dream kitchen, of the highest quality and expertly fitted. However what they have ended up with is a chipped, ill- fitted mess, which frankly looks like it could have come from factory seconds.

I can perfectly understand why your poor parents are so distraught. Having both been through the mill with serious health scares, they desperately needed this installation to go well. The kitchen is the heart of the home and they thought having their dream one installed would change their lives for the better.

Instead, the nightmare that’s unfolded has meant they haven’t felt comfortable in their own home for months. Their bandwidth for dealing with a failing kitchen installation on top of their other stresses was pretty much non- existent, hence why you stepped in. And thank goodness you did.

The company that supplied your parents’ tasteful olive green kitchen units has recently gone into administration, meaning it cannot be replaced because they are no longer being made.

The company, as I understand it, supplies the vast majority of John Lewis’s kitchen units, forcing John Lewis to suspend its fitted kitchen service altogether. Although your mother had fallen in love with these particular units, she did not want another John Lewis kitchen, you say. She has

completely lost faith in it. I wondered whether the administration had something to do with why the units were so chipped. Had the supplier supplied damaged units it would have usually put on the “seconds” pile, because it was in financial trouble? I put this to John Lewis and it denied that the supplier sent substandard products, stating that no other customers had experienced the same issues.

I think a more likely scenario is that the brand new units were damaged by the fitter. From what I can see this fitter, who John Lewis told you was “the best”, was anything but. He made an absolute pig’s ear of this installation, with a catalogue of errors from start to finish. Although he was subcontracted by John Lewis and not an employee, it was still its responsibility to manage the situation to minimise stress for your parents, which it failed to do.

You say you were struggling to get John Lewis to take responsibility, but happily, my intervention has had the desired effect. It offered your parents total compensation of £17,000, which is the full cost of the units (£11,650), about 45pc of the installation cost (£3,350), and £2,000 compensation for the stress they have endured. The rest of the installation your parents were happy with, so this is not being refunded. The redress will enable them to buy new units and have them installed to a good standard. They are happy to keep the appliances and worktops supplied by John Lewis.

Aside from the financial boost, I hope this grants them a sense of closure from this traumatic chapter. Goodness knows, after all they’ve been through, they are in need of a jolly good rest.

A John Lewis spokesman said: “We are incredibly sorry that we’ve fallen short in this instance. We’ve reached a settlement with Mr and Mrs S, which they have accepted, as well as fixing the wiring, and arranging the gas and electric certificates.

“The settlement includes a significant refund, goodwill payment and money to cover having the kitchen put right. We apologise unreservedly for the inconvenience this has caused during what has been a very difficult time for the couple.”