Good Afternoon,
I took possession of a house on January 07, 2011. I took it over AS IS. The chimney was in shambles and I had to take it down from top to bottom. Consequently the hot water heater needed to be changed as it only worked with a chimney.
My electrician/furnace agent informed me that I should buy an electrical hot water heater to bypass the need for a chimney. So I did.
I contacted Enbridge to see what I should do with the rented heater and they said to call National Homer Services. So I did. They inform me that I would owe them $900 if I broke the contract. “What contract” I asked. Apparently a door to door salesperson came to the house last march and made the owner (an 86 year old lady) sign a “lifetime commitment” contract. She’s 86!! How sleazy can you get? In my opinion this is a very unethical practice.
The elderly lady is now deceased and I have purchased her house, again AS IS. I need to get rid of the hot water tank, and apparently not until I pay National Homer Services $900. Remember that you can get one of these at Home Depot for only $400. Also, it is of no use to me as I no longer have a chimney.
The only mention that the Agreement of Purchase and Sale made was “Rented Equipment: Hot Water Heater”. Other than that I have not seen the contract between the deceased elderly lady and National. Again, I took over the property AS IS. But never before have I seen a company charge to break a contract for one of these things – especially to the new home owner. Direct Energy would never do this. Four years ago I had a similar purchase, and Direct Energy took away the hot water tank seamlessly. A contract for a hot water heater should NOT be transferable to the next owner – and it should never be for 15 years. Who even allows National to get away with this?
Can you suggest anything that will help me in convincing National Home Services to waive this absolutely ridiculous fee and to come and pick up their hot water tank?
Thank you
Hi i really do feel bad for you but i have to say i had National Home services replace my hot water tank as well as my furnace and ac and so far so good. The cancelation is so high because apparently if you break the contract before five years then they charge for the installation fee and all the other fees that were waved back when the installation was done because it's all done for free. And I learned that the reason why direct didnt lock anyone into a contract is because they wanted the liberty to raise their prices at will, and I had more than one too many bad experiences with them so i was more than happy to switch to national.
But anyways, the best thing to do is to call enbridge since the billing is done through them, bring to their attention that the account holder (the deceased woman) entered into that agreement and not you and i think they will sort out something.