If you use a credit card to buy goods that prove faulty, the law entitles you to claim against the card issuer as well as the retailer or supplier (although you are not entitled to be paid twice over for a given loss). Moreover, the claim can cover distress and loss of enjoyment as well as the value of the item purchased, reports The Financial Times.This protection could prove invaluable if, say, your holiday company goes bankrupt and has not maintained its insolvency cover. But the ability to seek redress from the issuer also can be useful in cases where the retailer proves elusive or reluctant to pay for shoddy goods or service.
You could have a claim against the issuer if, for example, goods are not delivered on time or are not what you ordered, a holiday was described wrongly, or a restaurant meal cooked badly.
The protection comes under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act (in the UK). This applies to all credit cards issued after July 1, 1977 but does not include debit cards, such asswitch, or charge cards, such as Amex. You are protected for transactions of more than 100 pounds but less than 30,000 pounds, even if only part of the payment is made by credit card. You could cover a holiday by putting just 50 pounds of the deposit on your card.
One gray area, which has yet to be tested in the courts, concerns liability when you use your card abroad. The issuers are adamant that s75 does not apply to these transactions although the Credit Card Research Group (CCRG), a trade body, says some will honour claims voluntarily while others deal with them on a "case by case basis".
On giving a new lease of life
Old Spring Hills -- It is the second largest private residence ever built in the US. Yet the 109,000-square-foot French chateau-style castle known as Oheka is in so secluded a setting that even many local residents are unaware that it's there.
Surrounding it is an enclave of about 300 houses and a 168-acre golf course. Only the 175,000-square-foot Biltmore House in Asheville,N.C., built by George W Vanderbilt in 1895 and turned into a thriving museum, surpasses Oheka in size. Now, after years of uncertainty and controversy, this 126-room Long Island landmark, which Otto H Kahn, a financier and patron of the arts, built in 1917, also has a more hopeful future.
The Financial Times reports that in January following a public hearing, the five-member Huntington town board voted unanimously in favour of allowing Gary Melius of Carle Place, who holds a 114-year lease on the property, to turn it into a 50-suite luxury health spa. A small portion of the building will be permanently set aside as a history and exhibit area open to the public. Without that approval, the building, once ravaged by vandals but now partially restored at a cost of $15 million, might have faced the same vandalised fate again because its vast size makes it economically impractical for most uses.
Melius said $20 million was needed to complete the restoration work. The building also costs $500,000annually, including $110,000 for taxes, to maintain. Built of concrete and steel with walls that are 3 to 5 feet thick, the mansion -- designated a landmark in 1991 -- would cost millions to tear down. Most neighbours -- whose homes were built on land once owned by Kahn -- supported allowing a commercial enterprise to move into their residential community, although there were dissenters who said it would bring additional traffic and noise.
"To allow Oheka to be vandalised once again was unthinkable," said Karen Friel, the chairwoman of the 197-member Cold Spring Hills Civic Association. The civic group sent the town board 324 petitions from surrounding homeowners supporting Melius's commercial-use application. At the public hearing, 18 people spoke against the application. "It's a very special structure with a unique identity on Long Island as well as in the nation, and it's right in the heart of our neighbourhood," Friel said. "Of course there were concerns over traffic, but some commercial use had to gothere or the building might have been lost."
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
