The Sales Visit, and Your Three Days

Walk-in tubs, stair lifts, bathroom conversions and “senior safety” packages are sold in living rooms, to people who are worried about a parent, often in a single visit that ends with a signature. The products can be perfectly good. The selling method is designed to prevent comparison, which is why this page exists.

Key figures

• $25 FTC Cooling-Off Rule minimum for at-home sales
• $130 FTC minimum for qualifying temporary-location sales
• three business days Cancellation window for qualifying FTC Cooling-Off sales

What federal law gives you at the door

The Federal Trade Commission’s Cooling-Off Rule gives you three business days to cancel certain sales made at your home, your workplace or a seller’s temporary location. Saturday counts as a business day; Sundays and federal holidays do not, and the deadline is midnight of the third business day.

The details:

• It applies to sales of $25 or more at your home, and $130 or more at a temporary location such as a hotel meeting room.
• The seller must give you two copies of a cancellation form and a dated contract or receipt with the seller’s name and address and a statement of your cancellation rights, in the language used in the sales presentation.
• It does not cover sales made entirely online, by post or by telephone.
• To cancel, sign and send the form before the deadline, keeping proof of posting.

If a salesperson in your parent’s living room cannot produce a cancellation form, that is not an oversight. It is a rule violation and a reason to stop.

Turn the pitch into a specification

The reason in-home sales work is that the customer has no specification, so the seller supplies one. Reverse that and the whole dynamic changes.

1. Get an assessment first. An occupational therapist, often available through Medicare’s home health benefit for people who qualify, will say what this person needs in this house and in what order. That document is your specification.
2. Write the scope down. “Remove tub, install curbless shower with 36-inch opening, two grab bars at specified heights, handheld shower, non-slip flooring, relocate light switch.”
3. Send the same scope to three contractors, including at least one general remodeler rather than only accessibility specialists.
4. Ask for itemised quotes: labour, materials, permit, disposal, making good.
5. Ask what is excluded, which is where the surprises live.
6. Check licence, insurance and references, and ask to see a job they finished in the last year.

Questions that separate good sellers from bad ones

• “Can I have the written quote and call you in a week?” A seller who cannot live with that answer has told you what you need to know.
• “What does this cost without the discount, and what is the discount contingent on?”
• “Who does the installation, your employees or subcontractors?”
• “What permits does this need, and who pulls them?”
• “What happens if the person’s needs change in two years?”
• “What is the warranty, on the product and on the installation, and who honours it?”

The products that attract pressure selling

• Walk-in tubs. Expensive, slow to fill and drain, and often not what an assessment would recommend first. There is a separate article on the trade-offs.
• Stair lifts. Genuinely useful for many households, and priced very differently by different sellers for the same staircase.
• “Medicare-approved” anything. Medicare covers durable medical equipment, not building work, so the phrase is usually doing marketing rather than describing coverage.
• Whole-house safety packages bundling alarms, monitoring and modifications, where the recurring monitoring fee is the actual product.

If a relative has already signed

1. Check the date. If it is within three business days of a sale at the home, use the Cooling-Off Rule and send the cancellation form, keeping proof.
2. Read the contract’s own cancellation terms if the window has passed.
3. Put everything in writing and keep a log of calls.
4. Complain to the state attorney general and the FTC if a valid cancellation is ignored.
5. Do not be embarrassed. These visits are designed by professionals to end in a signature, and it takes nothing away from the person that it worked.

Related reading: Medicare Does Not Pay for Grab Bars and The Local Money Nobody Advertises.

Questions people ask

Can I cancel a contract signed at home for a walk-in tub or stair lift?

The FTC's Cooling-Off Rule gives three business days to cancel most sales of $25 or more made at your home, and the seller must have given you two copies of a cancellation form and a dated contract stating your rights. After that window, the contract's own terms govern.

How many quotes should I get for an accessibility project?

Three, all priced against the same written scope, including at least one general remodeling contractor. Without a written scope, quotes are not comparable, which is exactly the situation in-home selling relies on.

Is a product that says it is Medicare-approved covered by Medicare?

Usually not in the way the phrase implies. Medicare covers durable medical equipment such as walkers and wheelchairs, not modifications to a building, so treat the claim as marketing and ask the plan directly for anything expensive.

Should I use the financing offered by the installer?

Arrange financing separately if you need it. In-room financing turns the conversation into a monthly payment, can be secured against the home, and is a separate product with its own rate, term and total cost.

Where these figures come from

1. Buyer's Remorse: The FTC's Cooling-Off Rule May Help Federal Trade Commission · consumer.ftc.gov
2. Durable medical equipment (DME) coverage Medicare.gov · medicare.gov
3. Home health services coverage Medicare.gov · medicare.gov

Figures last checked September 2026.