This article was published on the Mature Times website.
Stannah Stairlifts Limited and Stannah Lift Holdings Limited have recently reached out of court settlements with both County Stairlifts Limited and Platinum Rails Limited to stop either business from using Stannah’s trade marks to advertise, promote, sell or install second hand curved stairlifts re-fabricated from parts originally manufactured by Stannah.The settlements require that Stannah’s trade marks are permanently removed from the stairlift chair and motor unit.
This is a significant victory for Stannah who received a large number of complaints from people who bought second hand re-fabricated curved stairlifts from a variety of sources in the belief that Stannah was responsible for the quality and performance of the stairlift - which was not the case.
The design and installation process for re-fabricated products is radically different from the process that Stannah uses. Stannah did not approve these installations as they had no control over how well the re-fabricated assembly would perform. In fact re-fabricated products often fall well short of both British Standards and Stannah’s own quality standards.
Jon Stannah, the company's Managing Director, said: "We are delighted that we have reached these settlements as we have become increasingly concerned that consumers were being misled to think that they where buying an original Stannah stairlift, albeit secondhand, and that these stairlifts were approved by Stannah as they bore our trade marks. "When we install a curved stairlift it is a bespoke design for our customer’s staircase. Those being sold secondhand are ‘best fit’ from unwanted curved rails originally designed for a completely different staircase. In our view, these fall well short of our quality and performance standards."
The Dolphin Stair Lifts blog. For more information on any of our stairlifts please call us on 0800 9800 126.
