Carpetright falls into administration – your installation and refund rights explained

Carpetright fell into administration on Monday 22 July, with financial services firm PwC appointed to oversee the process. The administrator said the business had faced "challenging trading conditions, predominantly due to changing consumer preferences and a drop in home improvement spending post-pandemic".

However, the Carpetright brand, intellectual property, 54 stores and two warehouses have been saved by rival firm Tapi Carpets. This deal has also saved 300 jobs, but a further 1,000 former employees now face redundancy. If you're affected, see our Redundancy help guide.

Over 200 Carpetright stores have now closed – check if yours is on the list

PwC has confirmed that 211 Carpetright stores in the UK that haven't been sold to Tapi have closed for good. You can click on the dropdown below for the full list.

Any UK-based Carpetright stores NOT on the list reopened on Friday 26 July. Tapi says these will continue to use the Carpetright brand for the foreseeable future.

Most existing orders are unlikely to be fulfilled

What happens next depends on where you placed your order: 

• Ordered online at Carpetright or at a store that's been permanently closed? This won't be fulfilled or refunded. However, if you paid using a debit or credit card or by taking out a credit agreement, you may be able to get your money back by filing a Section 75 or chargeback claim. Alternatively, you can register as an 'unsecured creditor'. See below for how to try to get your money back.

• Ordered at a store that's reopening? Contact Tapi. Tapi originally said that it would contact affected customers from Friday 26 July – but it has now quietly removed this statement from its website. It refused to confirm to us whether it still plans to contact customers, or whether existing orders would definitely be fulfilled.

  If you've not heard anything, you can try visiting your local store or contacting Tapi via alternative means. If Tapi can't or won't fulfil your order or refund you, see below for how to try to get your money back.

Gift cards can no longer be used

Administrators are allowed to change gift card terms and conditions when a firm goes bust and whether you can claim for their original value isn't guaranteed.

Tapi says Carpetright gift cards bought before the business entered administration on Monday 22 July will NOT be accepted at any of the reopened Carpetright stores or online (Carpetright's former website is no longer available to use anyway). PwC wouldn't tell us how much money is left on unused gift cards.

If you bought a gift card, you can try to get your money back from your card provider or by registering as a creditor – see below for how to try getting your money back.

If your goods are faulty, you still have some rights – but your options are limited

All goods must follow what we call the 'SAD FART' rules, which means they must be: Satisfactory quality, As Described, Fit for purpose, And last a Reasonable length of Time.

If your goods fail to meet any of these criteria, you're entitled to a full refund within the first 30 days. After that, you should be offered a repair or replacement – then, if those don't work, a partial or full refund.

Note: If it's been more than six months since you got the goods, it'll be on you to prove that they were faulty (or prone to developing a fault) when you bought them. In practice this could involve, for example, getting a report from an expert to show there was a design or manufacturing defect with the product(s).

However, enforcing your rights is where it gets tricky. The first issue is that you only have a legal right to make a consumer rights claim within the first six years of a purchase (five in Scotland). 

Secondly, to enforce your rights, you would usually go to the retailer, but the Carpetright business you purchased from no longer exists. And even though Tapi has purchased the brand and some stores, it hasn't taken on responsibility for goods purchased prior to the administration or for any warranties – including Carpetright's 14-day "get it right" guarantee. This leaves you with a few options...

How to try getting your money back

If you have an unfulfilled order, unusable gift card or faulty goods, here's what you can try:

• If you paid with a credit card, or using a credit agreement that you took out through Carpetright, you can enforce your consumer rights against your card provider or lender. Under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act, if you pay for something costing more than £100 but less than £30,000 using credit, the credit provider's equally liable if something goes wrong. This applies even if you only paid for part of the purchase on credit.

  In other words, you have the SAME rights as you do with the retailer. So, your credit card provider or lender has to step into the role of Carpetright and it becomes responsible for helping you with a repair, replacement or refund. You can typically file a Section 75 claim within six years of purchase – contact your card provider or lender and it should guide you through the process. 

  Paid on a debit card? You have some protection under the chargeback rules. This is where your bank asks for the money back from Carpetright's bank, but it's much more limited – for example, you normally only have 120 days from the date of purchase to make a claim. 

• As a last resort, you can try getting a repair, replacement or refund by filing as an "unsecured creditor" with Carpetright's administrator. This means you'll go on the administrator's list of people it owes money or services to. However, you’ll be at the back of the queue, so there's no guarantee you'll get anywhere. There's currently no deadline, though it's best to do it sooner rather than later, just in case. To register as a creditor, contact PwC.

Additional reporting by the Press Association.