In most cases, you pay. If a sofa physically cannot reach the room — stairwell too narrow, door swing blocked, elevator too small — the delivery is refused or returned, and the round-trip freight of 10–25% of the item's value typically lands on the buyer. Carriers move what you ordered; nobody in that van measured your hallway. The retailer's terms will say so in a paragraph you skimmed at checkout.
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The liability line, drawn plainly
| Scenario | Who typically pays | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Box damaged in transit, item broken | Retailer / carrier | Their handling |
| Wrong item delivered | Retailer | Their mistake |
| Won't fit through the door or stairs | Buyer | Your building, your measurements |
| Driver refuses a reasonable carry to the door | Carrier | Service level not met |
| Item won't fit once assembled (wrong room plan) | Buyer | Planning, not delivery |
That middle row is the one that stings. “The delivery guys couldn't get it up” sounds like their failure, but legally and commercially it is an access problem — and access problems are measured before purchase, not discovered on the doorstep.
The 10-minute pre-check that saves the return fee
- Measure the narrowest point of the route — usually the stair turn or the bathroom-door detour, not your front door. A 90 cm front door means nothing if the stair landing pinches to 78 cm.
- Measure diagonal clearance at turns: a sofa that fits a 80 cm corridor can still fail a landing if its length exceeds the turn's diagonal. For L-shaped stairs, add 15–20 cm of slack to every number.
- Check packaged size, not product size. A flat-pack wardrobe carton is often 10–20 cm taller than the assembled unit — cartons do not tilt gracefully.
- Confirm elevator cabin dimensions with building management; a 200 cm cabin diagonally fits about 190 cm of furniture, not 200.
- Clear the path the night before: rugs, coat racks, that heroic mirror in the hallway. Half of “it didn't fit” is actually “it didn't fit past the console table.”
When it does go wrong
Photograph everything where it stands: the item at the bottom of the stairs, the pinch point, the tape measure across it. Contact the retailer within 48 hours — claims made after a week start at a disadvantage. Some retailers will authorize a partial solution: legs off the sofa base (recovers 8–12 cm of height), feet removed from a wardrobe (5–8 cm), or hoisting through a window at €150–400, which occasionally beats a 20% restocking fee. Ask before refusing; a refused delivery is a decision you cannot unmake once the van leaves.
One honest rule to remember: furniture only has to fit your home in one configuration, but it has to fit your building in every configuration between curb and bedroom. Measure the boring parts. That is the whole game.
And a word on the packaged-size trap, because it ambushes even careful people. Flat-pack furniture travels as cartons, and cartons are rigid: a 200 cm wardrobe panel cannot bend around the landing your 195 cm assembled sofa would have squeezed past. Check the shipping dimensions listed on the product page — usually a small link under the main specs — and measure the route against the carton's longest side, especially for turns. It is the one measurement retailers assume you already know to make, and the one most returns are made for not making.
Keep reading
More dimension guides are in the collection, and the full index is on the furnolio journal.
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