Noah The red flag should be the kind of music that is played on this piano. If this is a gospel type church, where they "bang" on the piano, and the drum set is right next to the piano, then strings are going to break. That is not covered under warrantee. Usually the piano is way to small for the amount of sound the piano player is trying to get out of the piano. I've had several instances where this happened. In both cases, the churches bought a piano that was too small for their needs, primarily because of the limited finds they had. Then they try to blame the store for selling them an "bad" piano. I would suggest you NOT appraise this piano, because it will put you in a precarious position. Let the church and store fight it out. If they need an "expert" witness, tell them you are not interested. Wim -----Original Message----- From: Noah Frere <noahfrere at gmail.com> To: pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org> Sent: Thu, Jul 15, 2010 8:02 am Subject: [pianotech] Appraisal Yesterday I recieved a call from someone representing the church piano asking me to come and look at their grand piano purchased about a year ago. There are string breakage problems and the company from whom they bought the piano has been out twice to repair broken strings, but now will no longer answer the phone, although the warranty is not yet expired. There are now 8 broken strings. They intend to sue the piano store, get the money back and purchase a different piano. They intend to use my evaluation, possibly in court, to back up their case. I see red flags. I remember attending a lecture by a tech a couple years ago about the importance of some sort of government license needed for appraisals. I am going to go read up on this matter, but if anyone has any knowledge or advice I sure would appreciate it. I only tentatively booked the appointment, and I plan on confirming, or more likely, canceling, tonight after I know more. -Noah Frere -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100715/24c8b3dd/attachment.htm>
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