Legal nightmare could make you regret you'd ever picked up your glue and scissors!
Syd has been bending my ear again with a story from which we can all learn a lesson!

For those who have been in Outer Mongolia for the past 20 years and still not heard of him, Syd Robbins of Select Business Forms is a retired alarm installer who doesn't know the meaning of the word retirement.

His idea of retirement was to set up a new company selling all manner of specialist forms to the alarm trade and getting his fingers into a lot of other industry pies. He was, for example, a founder board member of the old SSA from which the SSAIB emerged. In doing so Syd has become more widely known than the lamplighter in days of old, and manages to keep his finger firmly on the security industry pulse.

Among the vast amount of forms from SBF is Syd's pride and joy – the set of Terms and Conditions for alarm installation companies. But the following story which he passed on to me is based around a very different set of terms and conditions.

The tender trap

An up and coming alarm Installation company decided one day that it would help their business along if they could get on the tender list for their local Council ... so they applied.

Back came a letter from the Council asking the company to submit a copy of their trading terms and conditions, so a copy was sent off. Several days later a very unexpected bomb dropped into their lap in the form of a letter from the Trading Standards Office.

Not only had their terms and conditions been refused by the Council but they were deemed to be so illegal that they had been referred to the Trading Standards Office who, in turn, confirmed their illegality to such an extent that the company was given only a matter of days to clean up their act or cease trading.

The company had to try to twist Syd’s arm to get a set of terms and conditions printed on their own company contracts in double quick time or face closure. A deal was struck and the SBF terms were printed and dispatched and, in due course, the new terms were then found to be acceptable.

Apparently they had only done what a lot of other alarm installers had done and that was to "borrow" a set of terms from the back of a rival company's contract and then hack it around a bit, hopefully to change it enough so that the "donating" company could not take them to court for theft if they ever found out. What they failed to realise is that the set of terms they "borrowed" had probably been "borrowed and hacked" in turn from another company ... and even if the donating company discovered that their terms and conditions had been stolen they still probably dare not take the matter to court for fear that they, in turn, may be discovered to have "borrowed" the terms from yet another company.

In fact it would appear that the normal way of acquiring a set of terms and conditions within our trade today is to gather in a selection of other company's sets of terms and conditions and then settle down with a tub of paste and a brush, a pair of scissors and a bottle of scotch for an entertaining evening of cutting and pasting. First we cut out all that we do not like, for example the clauses that start "the company is responsible for ...", then we sort out and arrange all the clauses that absolve our company of any sort of responsibility and glue them in.

Then, after reading it through a few times, we suddenly spot a loophole that leaves the company open to some form of responsibility, so out comes the pen and we try to write a clause of our own using the sort of words and legal jargon that is already filling our page. Eventually we arrive at a stage where we have a set of terms and conditions that are "all our own work" and we feel very pleased about the whole issue so we order in a curry and finish off the scotch to celebrate how much hard cash we have saved.

As an inspector I often get to see copies of terms and conditions that are in current use and it is fairly common to find the same sets of words cropping up time and again, I also cringe at some of the things I see.

Firstly, before anyone starts writing in to tell me how wrong I am, let me state that I am not a qualified solicitor ... but I can fall back on what looks like common sense. So let’s have a look at a couple of example clauses that crop up regularly.

  • Carpets: I often see clauses that claim that the company is not responsible for the re-fitting of any carpets or flooring that is taken up during the fitting of the system. All I can say is: Don't try to pull that one on me, if you are working on my property and you find that you have to take up the carpet I will expect you to make a reasonable job of putting it back before you get paid. I am inclined to believe that if it went to court I would emerge the winner on that one.

  • Water pipes and mains wiring: I actually see clauses where it states that it is the customer's responsibility to point out any hidden wires or pipes before the installer starts work. Oh come on! That can only be fair if the customer is the actual builder of the property and has personal knowledge of where the pipes and wires have been laid. The average customer even in a business environment has no idea where pipes and wires run. They have little or no understanding of the piping and wiring concept and, surely, in a Court of Law they cannot be held responsible for something they cannot see or understand. YOU, on the other hand, are a "competent" tradesman with a thorough knowledge of your trade and can be expected to be able to find all those hidden pipes and wires, and if you do find them the hard way, you foot the bill for putting the matter right. In fact in some corners this is considered to be the finest way of learning that particular section of our trade. There's nothing like sitting on the customer's floor, wringing wet with your finger over the offending hole trying with very little success to stop the flow of water, whilst trying to instruct the panic stricken lady of the house how to go about finding and shutting of the main stop tap. Don't laugh, we've all been there, and if you haven't – beware! Your time is yet to come.

Electric dreams

‘It seems the normal way of acquiring a set of terms today is to copy them from other companies’

In some respects the electric wires are even worse. One second you’re standing at the top of the stepladder drilling away, next second there’s a bang and a big blue flash and you find yourself sitting on the floor still holding the drill. Your eyes are crossed and seeing stars and the lady of the house or the office secretary comes up to you and asks the time honoured question:"Are you alright?" (The answer involves a comprehensive collection of four letter words that are better not printed). After a couple of incidents like that you learn how to avoid pipes and wires hidden in walls.

Today legal contracts are challenged in court and anything unfair or unreasonable can be overturned. After that comes the scramble for costs and expenses and the loser of the case often has to cough up some fairly hefty amounts of the folding stuff, so think very carefully.

On a more realistic note the average customer is quite likely to succumb to the bluff and bluster of the company that uses one of these cobbled together DIY contracts and the threat of “You signed the contract so pay up or we take you to court" usually has the desired effect. This is usually a last resort when the customer is trying to unload his alarm installer because relations have got to a state of war between them. It is often a case of "We’ve lost the business so let's sting him for as much as we can get on the way out".

In all fairness these cases are few and far between because most alarm companies are made up of fair and hardworking lads who do the job right and have no desire to rip off their customers. Because of this the problems of a DIY contract rarely come to light, but I imagine there are countless examples out there waiting for someone to put a foot wrong. The problem will most likely crop up if the customer has to make a claim against his property insurance.

The insurance investigator may decide that the fault lies with the alarm installer. If the installer tries to forestall this by citing his signed contract absolving him of all liability, and the insurance company takes up the challenge, there may well ensue a long and costly legal battle. If the alarm company has not got a good and fair legal contract, the insurers will take him to the cleaners, the local press will get a hold of the story and the alarm company's reputation will be in tatters.

I know that it rarely happens but the question I have to ask is can you afford to take the risk?

Take a leaf out of Syd's book (no, I don't mean "borrow" his contract ... he will sue any company he catches stealing his copyright , and he can make more cash by suing you that he can by selling you the contracts in the first place!) Syd has had his terms written by a qualified person and he has them checked regularly to keep them up to date.

Why don't you do the same. Avoid the DIY route and don't trust to luck that the company you have "borrowed" your terms from has actually gone as far as having them checked.

A friend ... and a helper to many

Ii is with great sadness that I have to report the death of a long-standing friend and colleague and one of the best-known characters in the security industry.

Tony Keenan, of T K Consultants died in hospital on August 24 aged 62 after a long heart problem. Tony started his working life in the RAF as a NCO Aircraft Radio Technician before joining Radio Spares as a Technical Sales Engineer. Later he joined a company manufacturing Printed Circuit Boards and eventually in 1967 joined forces with Ken Bentley and various others to form K J Bentley and partners. The company went on to become the leading manufacturer of control panels within the industry gaining a reputation for robust reliability and stability; in fact they were often referred to by alarm engineers as "Bomb-proof".

Following a heart attack in 1987, he had to retire from the high-pressure world of sales and marketing. He left KJ Bentley and started T K Consultants where he built up a healthy installer training business and supplying the handy little modules that were not available elsewhere.

A further, more serious heart attack some years later resulted in him having a heart transplant at Wythenshawe Hospital, Manchester ... filmed and transmitted by Granada television as part of a documentary on the heart transplant unit.

The transplant effectively brought an end to his working life and the running of the business was passed to other members of his family. Today, T K Consultants is run by Tony's daughter Helen.

Even though he faced levels of adversity that would have daunted a saint, he came through with cheerful good grace and rarely complained. He was well liked and respected throughout the industry and helped a great many people (myself included) with both advice and by example.

At the request of Tony's wife Pip, instead of sending flowers could any donations go to the "New Heart - New Start" appeal at Wythenshawe Hospital that Tony actively campaigned for and supported. The address is: New Heart - New Start, Wythenshawe Hospital, Southmoor Road, Manchester M23 9LT.