Entry 22 · Doors
Reading a door or window contract before you sign
Read a replacement door or window contract clause by clause before signing: scope, payment, variations, cancellation rights and completion terms.
A contract for replacement doors or windows is a short document that carries the whole job, and you read it in one pass per question: what exactly is being supplied, when money moves, what happens if either side changes its mind, and what marks the work as done. Anything you were promised on the doorstep that is not in those clauses does not exist for the purposes of the job.
The habit of reading an agreement clause by clause before signing is the same whatever the paper, and Legal Kits keeps a working method for reading service contracts before signing, from scope and payment through to amendments and what each party signs. Apply that same patience to a door order and the document stops being a formality.
01 What should the scope section name?
Scope is the clause that decides every later argument. It should name the number of units, the openings they go in, the product line and colour, the glazing specification, the hardware, the disposal of the old units and the making good inside and out. A scope that says supply and fit windows without naming which windows is a scope that lets the job shrink after the price is fixed.
Check the annexes as part of scope. The survey sheet, the product brochure page and any drawings belong to the contract, and they only protect you if the contract says they are part of it. If the survey is not mentioned, ask for a line that names it, because the measurements on it are what the fabricator will build against.
02 How do payment terms protect you?
The payment schedule tells you who carries the risk while work is underway. A modest deposit, staged payments tied to real events and a balance due only on satisfactory completion keep the leverage where it belongs, with the person paying for work not yet delivered. A large deposit on a long lead time asks you to fund the firm's cash flow, and the size of that ask is itself information.
Ask how the deposit is protected while it is held, and whether the written guarantee is backed by insurance if the firm ceases to trade. The certificate that arrives after fitting has its own file, and the entry on what the paperwork proves explains what that page covers and what it leaves to the guarantee.
03 What do cancellation and variation clauses do?
Cancellation rights depend on where the contract was agreed. A contract signed in your home after a visit is generally an off-premises agreement, and the cooling-off rights that follow are part of consumer law rather than a favour from the firm. Citizens Advice keeps the current position on consumer rights when you buy away from trade premises, and the written notice the firm gives you about cancellation is a clause worth reading before it is needed.
Variations are the other moving part. Once the survey becomes the order, changes to glass, hardware or sizes should travel in writing with a price and a signature. A verbal yes at the door is a variation that never happened, and the clause that sets out how changes are agreed is the clause that keeps the final invoice matching the job you chose.
Read the timetable clause with the same care. A start window, an expected duration and a note on what delays do to either side are all ordinary terms in this trade, and their absence is the usual reason a six-week job becomes a four-month saga with no written lever to pull. If the dates matter to you because of tenants, weather or another trade booked behind this one, the clause is where that importance gets written down.
04 What happens at completion?
Completion should be defined, not assumed. Read for what the firm counts as finished: units fitted, sealed and working, waste removed, making good done, and the paperwork that follows, including the certificate registration where the work is in scope. Walk each unit with the fitter before the balance moves, operate every handle and lock, and note anything unfinished in writing while the van is still outside.
Keep the contract, the survey sheet, the variations and the certificate together as one file. If the quote that started the job arrived by email, the entry on checks for a quote in your inbox covers the earlier end of the same trail, and checking the firm online is the check that should have happened before the pen.
Print the contract, read it once for scope, once for money and once for exits, then sign the version you actually read.
Once the contract is signed, the scope it describes is fixed, but the opening it fits into may still need attention. A door that has to be stepped over, a cill that holds water, or door furniture that stays usable at a level threshold are practical matters a contract rarely settles. The Sash and Frame Ledger has added an entry, Step-free thresholds at doors and patio doors, which looks at level access where a door already exists: threshold heights, drainage at the cill, door furniture, and what can be adjusted without rebuilding the opening. It is worth reading before work begins, so any change to the opening is agreed in writing rather than assumed.