self catering consumers rights - right to a refund?

Dear C


It has been brought to my attention that you wish to cancel your booking at 0789 Castle in January. Having investigated the matter in depth you are absolutely correct in thinking that you had made it clear to staff member throughout the enquiry process that the reason you were looking at booking a self catering property was with a view to getting married in it. I do not know why staff member failed to mention this fact on the paperwork sent to the owner. This is a matter I will have to bring up with staff member once this incident has been resolved. I am very sorry if this caused you some anxiety when you discovered that Mr Bloggs had not been made aware of the ceremony. I understand first hand the difficulties involved with organising such a special day, and the last thing you need is any hiccups!

Given you are not exceeding the advertised occupancy rate, even with guests visiting the apartment for the actual ceremony, you are perfectly entitled to have a minister come up to the apartment to attend to your vows if you so wish. I have spoken with Mrs Bloggs over this and she is of the same opinion and all is fine with her. She is unaware of the conversation you had with her husband yesterday and will speak with him this evening to clarify what he said.

Owners do like to know if a wedding is taking place at their property in advance, because it may carry an additional burden of responsibility for the owner (and agency), depending on the individual circumstances, in terms of additional information required, extra services needed and emotional involvement beyond that which is normally expected from the average family holidaymaker. In addition, owners worry about the general 'wear and tear' issue if more people are convening in and using the facilities of the property than the property can normally cope with, or has appropriate insurance for. This is why some owners insist on charging a facility fee.

It is clear however in all the correspondence between yourself and staff member that the number of people at your wedding ceremony will be no more than the number the apartment can comfortably accommodate. 'As such, ‘wear and tear' is unlikely to be an issue so the fact that the Bloggs’s were not informed of the ceremony, is inconsequential for you. Your booking does not contravene the Terms and Conditions of the property, so as such, it has been processed as a standard 8 night booking.

Out of courtesy I have spoken with Mrs bloggs this afternoon and apologised for not informing her that a small ceremony was going to be taking place in the apartment. She was fine with this and told me that, as long as she didn’t have to do anything more than she would be normally expected to undertake for a standard booking,. You mentioned Mr Bloggs was concerned in your email which I passed by Mrs Bloggs, but she knew nothing of his phone conversation with you and as such will have to speak to him to ascertain what had been said. However, as mentioned, she had no concerns - and as such neither do we.

Again, I sincerely apologise for not having informed the Bloggs of your wedding. Our policy is to advise owners when weddings are taking place (normally prompted by the facility fee) but in this instance we failed to do so.

With kind regards

My frustrated reply after ear bashing telephone call




Dear Staff member

Thank you for agreeing to my request to keeping communications via email. Also for your calling Friday afternoon As with everything that comes by us in life, it was educational.

In regards to - Investigated conversations - Were the vocal communications recorded ?
If so, I respectively request under the data protection act that you please send me a copy of them, so I may confer. You will see that there's not much communications to go by regarding emails, except for the urgency on your agency's part to firm a booking.

If you allowed me long enough to finish a conversation, you would have learn ed that, in fact, what has been adamantly been stated on the phone from the beginning, was that, there was always going to be a mini mun of 12 people going to the wedding, pending family members situation, and that at a push, no more than 16 people would be in attendance. My partner and children don't need six bedrooms.

My brother would be staying the Friday where my partner would part the eve of the wedding to the hotel room. The seven others would be staying on the Saturday night after the ceremony. My partner and I spending the wedding night in a hotel but if the total numbers were 16, again, I would make sure the extra four would be housed in hotels rooms.

I rang and asked if it would be possibly to have our Sunday to Sunday booking moved to a Monday to Monday, so that everyone that stayed on the Saturday night, was not rushed out in the morning on the Sunday. I was notified this wouldn't be an option, and had to go with booking an additional day to the Monday.

With one family member serving in Kenya, before being sent to Afghanistan, I couldn't dictate, who was doing what and when, it was made clear to me, to fill in that my partner and I with the children were the main people staying, and that as long as the exceeded amount staying wasn't breached, the extras at the weekend was fine.

You state you are under no obligation to notify the owners. I rang and spoke with Mr.Bloggs, to ask if he could recommend a minister, and could he advise where in the apartment/grounds would be best suited to have the wedding. Obviously bemused by my questions, ending the call in response, Mr. Bloggs stated he would have to ring the agency regarding the matter! Therefore, I'm positively assuming, other notified verbal communications made before, during and after the booking had not been reiterated!

If you would really like it more in depth, I could dictate a copy all my paperwork and notes down to you recorded delivery along with a copy of this letter ?

To comprehend, that our ' special day ' will be so, is quite baffling.

Could you please advise if the cancellation and monies are being returned?

Kind regards