Nursery closure, no refund - is that fair?

trumpton

Giving you the time in lieu seems fair. I can understand why they closed - they have to have a certain staff-child ratio and maybe enough staff couldn't get in. But that's not your fault. You have paid for a service which they could not provide - the nursery should just have to absorb the cost. If you had your car booked into a garage and then they closed because of the snow, they don't still charge you. Other businesses have had to absorb the costs of the bad weather.

As you can see, I really don't have a lot of time for nurseries. I think they are generally run by fairly greedy individuals paying minimum wages.

smcaul

I really cant see how they can get away with this - even if it is in the contract I would have thought it would be an unfair term - how can they make you pay for something they have not provided, through no fault of yours.

I cant think of any other business that can carry on charging when they do not provide a service, if you had booked for a repair engineer to visit you and they could not make it due to the snow would you still expect to pay them for not attending!!!!

Their argument about their costs is their problem, not yours. They should have built in contingency to their pricing to cover the very few times this sort of thing happens.

In theory they could close one or two days a week on a regular basis and still charge you if this were the case!!!!

ToK_2

Thanks. I think I will pursue this one further. Its hard because you don't want to fall out with them incase they treat your child differently. I just wish I had something I could quote so that my argument comes across as cool, calm and legalistic rather than as parental indignation.

fluffnutter

ToK wrote: »

Its hard because you don't want to fall out with them incase they treat your child differently.

Whoa! If they're willing to treat a baby/toddler unfavourably just because his/her parents are pursuing a financial query, then find another nursery!