deposit when holiday cancelled.

kurjam

we was going to kent for a few days and paid £100 deposit for a house.
due to circumstances beyond our control i have had to cancel obviously losing my deposit.

now the lady who owns the house says its short notice and i will lose my £100 but she wants an extra £150 because i have broken my contract with her.

now i never signed anything and the only paper work i have from her is a letter confirming my date to arrive.
can she legally do this ?

thank you

ellay864

What were the T&C when you booked? Was there anything written on a website etc when you made the booking? You don't have to have a piece of paper to have a contract. If you book online you usually have to say you accept the t&c before completing the transaction. If it was written in terms anywhere she's probably within her rights. If there were written terms that stated you could cancel at any time and only lose deposit then no, but its quite normal for places to charge payments at different amounts depending on the period of notice given

kurjam

no there were no t&c`s just that the deposit was not returned if any damages happened to her property.....
we have been to her house a few times, with no problems, yet we have to cancel once and this happens and she says we cant stay there again if we refuse to pay £150 extra...

but nothing on webpage and noting in the letter we got from her.
so do we pay it or not ?

p00hsticks

Look at it the other way round - if you had been able to go but she had turned round to you at this stage and said 'I'm sorry but you can't stay at the house after all, here's your £100 deposit back' , would you have been satisfied with that or would you have expected her to provide some sort of compensation ?

dzug1

The answer is yes, she probably can do this. In the absence of written T&C it boils down to what is fair and reasonable and for a short notice cancellation it sounds as though it is.

If it had been a commercial let you would probably have paid in full by now and lost all or most of it if you had cancelled.

adviceforall

What date had you actually booked? How long ago had you booked? We have a holiday caravan and would never dream of asking someone for extra money if they cancelled. I agree with keeping the deposit at short notice as sometimes it means you miss out on a booking for that period.

Madmel

As adviceforall does, I too would keep the deposit. However, I think we should be asking if there is any way this house could be let out to someone else. Supposing the LL lets it out to someone for *your* week, would she still want the £150 from you?

I own a holiday cottage, and depending on the circumstances, if someone had to cancel at short notice, I would err on the side of sympathy, especially if it was guests who had been before. I would keep the deposit and ask my online advertiser to try to let the place at a discounted rate (they offer this facility for lets within the next 6 weeks). I would still end up with close on the original amount (discounted rate plus original deposit) but with a lot more goodwill all around.

However, I am very surprised that there are no T&Cs. We have them on the site which does the online bookings and also send them out with the booking forms. A deposit secures the booking with the balance being payable a month before arrival. In view of the fact that you were not given nor had sight of T&Cs, how can you possibly justify the charge?

Ian_W

kurjam wrote: »

now i never signed anything and the only paper work i have from her is a letter confirming my date to arrive.
can she legally do this ?

Do what? Ask you for more than the deposit and tell you that if you don't pay up she won't accept any more bookings from you? Yes, of course she can, but whether you pay on that basis is a matter for you.

Could she take you to court for more than the deposit? Quite possibly, though her lack of clear T&Cs about cancellations wouldn't help her chances, I don't believe it would fatally wound them either. When you booked her cottage you entered into a contract with her, most contracts are not in writing, and by cancelling you've breached your side of that contract and she could seek compensation.

If the cancellation is very short notice, days rather than weeks, it's quite possible a court would decide she was due more compo than the deposit based on her being unable to re-let at such a late stage.No matter how late it's very unlikely to be the full rental though, as she wouldn't incur expenses for things like cleaning, laundry, utilities etc because the property would be empty.

Does she collect the rent when you arrive, is that why you haven't paid the balance several weeks before? How much is the full rent and how long before did you cancel?

Like Madmel & adviceforall I used to let a holiday property, but overseas, and what they're describing is good practice not the law. I'm not suggesting for one minute that she would take legal action but merely that the law might, in some circumstances, support her view that she is due more compensation than the deposit.

kurjam

we booked the house in may, i cancelled monday this week suppose to have been going next saturday.
she said if she can let the house i will have to pay £75...... you pay a deposit to her and the rest when you get there.....
this is the first time in 3 years i have cancelled and we have been to her probably 7 times in 3 years...
we are cancelling because of a genuine incident at home........

daniel_owen_uk

If the non refundable deposit, doesn't meet what she thinks is reasonable to cover her losses, then I suggests she increases what she requests as a Deposit.

If you haven't agreed to pay anything else and haven't signed to say you will, then how can she charge you?

Did you have holiday insurance or any product (say with your bank) that will provide it?

adviceforall

Maybe she should do what most people do for holiday accommodation is that the final balance is paid 8 weeks before the holiday start date, ( some do less weeks) but 8 seems pretty standard then it gives the owner 8 weeks to try and re-book that week, we had a cancellation in June, so I kept the deposit, then ended up reducing the price by the amount of the deposit to get a quick let, so ended up with a booking that week and still got the original price.I dont think i could work with only collecting a deposit with full payment cash upon arrival, I feel you only have a firm booking when you have received all the money due.