Who is actually lending you the money
The company measuring your windows is rarely the company lending you the money for them. Most installers act as a credit broker: they introduce you to a finance house, and that finance house is the lender. It is worth reading the footer of any installer’s finance page, where the wording is almost always a version of “a credit broker and not a lender, authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority” followed by a firm reference number. The lender behind it is usually a mainstream consumer credit provider — Barclays Partner Finance and Novuna Personal Finance (a trading style of Mitsubishi HC Capital UK PLC) are two of the common ones in the window trade.
This matters for a practical reason rather than a pedantic one. If the installer goes out of business halfway through the job, the lender is still there, and under Section 75 the lender can be jointly liable for what the installer promised. That is the whole point of the distinction, and it is why the identity of the lender is worth knowing before you sign rather than after.
What 0% APR actually costs
A 0% deal is not automatically a good deal, and it is not automatically a bad one either. The test is simple and takes one question: ask what the price is if you pay in full, today, by other means.
If the answer is the same number, the credit is genuinely free to you and there is no reason to turn it down — you keep your money for longer and you gain the protections set out below. If the answer is a lower number, the difference between the two is the real price of that 0%, and you should weigh it against what borrowing the same amount elsewhere would cost. Either way you now have a figure instead of a feeling.
The language of the law backs up the question. Section 75 turns on the cash price of the goods, which is a phrase that only makes sense if a cash price exists as a distinct thing from the credit price. Asking for it is a normal question, not an awkward one, and an installer who will not answer it has told you something useful.
Section 75: the protection you only get if you borrow
Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 makes the lender jointly liable with the installer for breach of contract or misrepresentation. On a job worth several thousand pounds with an installer you met last week, that is a substantial thing to have.
According to the Financial Ombudsman Service, it applies where you paid some or all of the cost by credit card, a point-of-sale loan or certain catalogue accounts, and the cash price is more than £100 but not more than £30,000. Installer finance is a point-of-sale loan, so it qualifies. Above £30,000 a lender may still have responsibility under Section 75A.
It’s the cash price of the goods or services that matters, not what you paid on your credit card or loan — for example, Section 75 applies even if you only made part of the payment using credit.
Financial Ombudsman Service
That sentence is the most useful thing on this page. It means putting the deposit alone on a credit card can protect the full value of the job. On a £9,000 window order, a £500 deposit paid by credit card is the cheapest insurance available anywhere in the transaction.
How the way you pay changes what you are covered for
The same windows, from the same installer, at the same price, carry different protection depending only on how the money moves.
| How you pay | Section 75 cover | 14-day right to withdraw from the credit |
|---|---|---|
| Installer's finance (point-of-sale loan) | Yes, if cash price £100 to £30,000 | Yes, under CCA s66A |
| Credit card, in full or deposit only | Yes, if cash price £100 to £30,000 | Applies to the card agreement, not the purchase |
| Bank loan paid into your own account | No — general-purpose credit is excluded | Yes, on the loan agreement |
| Debit card | No. Chargeback may be possible, typically within about 120 days | Not applicable |
| Bank transfer or cash | No | Not applicable |
Section 75 and chargeback positions per the Financial Ombudsman Service, checked 31 August 2026. Chargeback is a card-scheme process rather than a legal right, and time limits vary. This is general information, not legal advice.
Made-to-measure windows may have no cooling-off period
Most people assume a 14-day cooling-off period applies to anything bought at home. For double glazing specifically, that assumption is often wrong, and it is wrong in the direction that costs you money.
The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 give a 14-day cancellation right on off-premises contracts — the ones signed at your kitchen table. But the Regulations carve out goods made to the consumer’s own specification, and Business Companion, the official guidance service for Trading Standards, names this trade directly. It says the exemption “may also apply to goods supplied as part of home improvements contracts, such as double glazed windows that have been made specifically to the measurements for the customer’s home rather than using stock parts”.
The same guidance draws the line clearly on the other side: the exemption does notcover items made to your specification simply by combining stock items, giving “a standard sized window unit bought from a trade supplier” as its example. So whether you can change your mind may turn on whether your windows were manufactured to your measurements or assembled from standard units — a distinction almost nobody asks about at the point of signing, and one worth asking about.
The 14 days you do get, and what it does not cancel
The credit agreement is a separate contract from the window order, and it is not made to your measurements. Under section 66A of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 you have 14 days to withdraw from most regulated credit agreements, without giving a reason. The clock starts the day after the agreement is made by both parties, or the day you receive your copy of the executed agreement, whichever is later. Citizens Advice notes that an agreement covered by the Act should say so at the top of its first page, which is the quickest way to check what you have signed.
How to check your installer is authorised
Arranging consumer credit is a regulated activity, so a firm offering you finance needs permission from the Financial Conduct Authority to do it. This takes two minutes to verify and almost nobody does it.
- Ask for the firm reference number, usually shown as an FRN on the finance paperwork or in the website footer.
- Look it up on the Financial Services Register, the FCA’s own public database.
- Check the name on the register matches the name on your quote, and that the permissions include credit broking.
A mismatch between the trading name on your quote and the registered firm is worth a question before anything else in the conversation continues. And it is a useful character test in general: a firm casual about financial regulation is unlikely to be careful about building regulations sign-off either.
Finance or savings: how to decide
There is no universal answer, but there is a short order of operations. Check first whether you qualify for help you do not have to repay, since that beats any credit deal: our double glazing grants guide covers the current schemes, and Scotland runs its own government interest-free loan through Home Energy Scotland, which is a different product from installer credit and generally cheaper than anything a salesperson can offer you.
After that, compare the cash price against the credit price, decide what the gap is worth, and note that the protections above have a value even when the interest does not. Paying by bank transfer to save a small discount on a five-figure job, from a firm you cannot easily check, trades away every remedy in the table above.
Get quotes you can compare on price, not on monthly payments
Finance only becomes a fair comparison once the underlying prices are comparable. Tell us what you need and Leads 2 Trade will arrange quotes from installers covering your postcode, then judge them on the total against our benchmark figures before anyone shows you a monthly number.
Ask each installer for the cash price and the credit price as two separate figures. It is a reasonable request, it takes the pressure out of the room, and the answers tell you which quotes are competing on the windows rather than on the payment plan.
Frequently asked questions
It depends on what the credit costs you and what it protects. On a genuine 0% deal where the installer charges the same price for cash, the credit is free and it also buys you Section 75 protection and a 14-day right to withdraw, so there is little reason not to use it. Where the installer offers a discount for paying cash, that discount is the real price of the finance and you should compare it against the interest before deciding.
Almost never. Most installers are credit brokers, not lenders: they introduce you to a finance company, which is the party actually lending. Their own paperwork usually says so in the small print, in the form 'a credit broker and not a lender, authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority' followed by a firm reference number. The lender is typically a mainstream consumer credit provider such as Barclays Partner Finance or Novuna Personal Finance.
Yes, on a typical job. The Financial Ombudsman Service says Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 applies where the cash price of the goods or services is more than £100 but not more than £30,000 and you paid some or all of it by credit card or a point-of-sale loan. Most double glazing jobs sit inside that band. It does not apply if you paid by debit card, bank transfer, cash, or a general-purpose bank loan paid into your own account.
Possibly not, and this catches people out. Trading Standards guidance on off-premises sales lists goods made to the consumer's own specification as exempt from the 14-day cancellation right, and names double glazed windows made specifically to the measurements of a customer's home as an example. Windows assembled from standard stock units are not exempt. Your credit agreement is a separate contract and does carry its own 14-day right to withdraw.
Withdrawing from the credit agreement ends the credit, not the order. You still owe the installer for the windows and will need to pay another way. Citizens Advice explains that if the money has already been advanced you must repay it, and the lender has to give you 30 days to do so. Treat the two contracts as separate, because they are.
Ask for their firm reference number and look it up on the Financial Services Register at register.fca.org.uk. The register shows whether the firm is authorised, what permissions it holds and whether it is a credit broker or a lender. A firm arranging credit without the right permission is a serious warning sign about everything else in the quote.
Yes. The Financial Ombudsman Service is explicit that it is the cash price of the goods or services that matters, not the amount you put on the card, so Section 75 can apply even where you paid only part by credit. Putting the deposit on a credit card is the cheapest protection available on a large job, provided the cash price is over £100 and not more than £30,000.
A full application involves a credit check that is recorded on your file. Many brokers can run a soft-search eligibility check first, which is not visible to other lenders, so ask whether the quote stage is a soft search before you agree to anything. Missing payments on a regulated agreement later will affect your file in the usual way.