New Consumer Protection Regulations Good News for the Specialist Retailer

The KBSA has welcomed the new regulations on consumer protection introduced by The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) on 26th May as good news for specialist retailers.

The new regulations aim to simplify consumer protection in the UK and across the EU, making it clear which practices are -and are not- allowed. They ban all traders in all sectors from using unfair commercial practices towards consumers and set out broad rules outlining when commercial practices are unfair in a number of categories. They also include an outright ban on a list of 31 specific practices.

Tony Nicholas, Chairman of the KBSA commented: ‘The government has strengthened its 'anti cowboy' credentials and reinforced the importance of the Trustmark scheme with these new regulations that aim to provide consumers with better protection from rogue traders.

‘The BERR is also investing £7.5million in developing specialist Trading Standards 'Scambuster' teams around the country which will maintain the focus on this area for the next three years.

‘Specialist retailers that do operate fairly and have invested in providing evidence that they are a reputable company will therefore benefit from more customers. They will also be able to differentiate themselves more decisively from the 'cowboy' image that tarnishes the home improvement sector as whole.’

Some of the banned practices cover falsely claiming accreditation, which means that retailers who try to claim to be a member of an association when they are not or display a quality mark or equivalent, such as Trustmark that they do not hold would breach the regulations.

Retailers and companies that are reported as being in breach of the regulations will be investigated by the local authority's trading standards service. Persistent breaches will be punishable by enforcement orders and a breach of an order could lead to up to two years in prison or a fine.

The Kitchen Bathroom Bedroom Specialists Association (KBSA) has recently announced that it has been granted 'approved scheme operator' status within the Government backed Trustmark scheme. This programme is described by the Government itself as part of its 'anti-cowboy' legislation.

Trustmark helps consumers find reliable and trustworthy professional tradesmen to carry out repairs and improvements to the inside and outside of their homes from a national database of members that have all satisfied the same strict criteria for membership.

Trustmark is a national scheme which was established in 2005 and now has 27 registered scheme operators and almost 14,000 approved firms.