Compensation for an awful holiday

OliKipper

We went to the Canary Islands at Easter to stay in a Villa we found on Owners Direct. On arrival we found a villa which was absolutely filthy, had not been cleaned and which had junk all over the place, it looked like someone else was staying there and had just popped out.
We contacted the owners brother as the phone number he'd given us was his work desk line which went straight to voicemail. They promised to get the owner to contact us to sort out the issues so that we could get on with our holiday.
When there was no contact we took matters into our own hands and found alternative accomodation, also via Owners Direct. The 2nd villa was lovely and we ended up having a very nice time.
At no point did the owner of villa number one contact us.
On return to the UK we tried to call Villa number one's owner - who eventually emailed us back, to say that he won't refund our money.
To date he hasn't even sent our deposit back. I have many photo's showing the state the villa was in on our arrival.

Do we have any right to get the money back for the rental of the villa?

isplumm

OliKipper wrote: »

We went to the Canary Islands at Easter to stay in a Villa we found on Owners Direct. On arrival we found a villa which was absolutely filthy, had not been cleaned and which had junk all over the place, it looked like someone else was staying there and had just popped out.
We contacted the owners brother as the phone number he'd given us was his work desk line which went straight to voicemail. They promised to get the owner to contact us to sort out the issues so that we could get on with our holiday.
When there was no contact we took matters into our own hands and found alternative accomodation, also via Owners Direct. The 2nd villa was lovely and we ended up having a very nice time.
At no point did the owner of villa number one contact us.
On return to the UK we tried to call Villa number one's owner - who eventually emailed us back, to say that he won't refund our money.
To date he hasn't even sent our deposit back. I have many photo's showing the state the villa was in on our arrival.

Do we have any right to get the money back for the rental of the villa?

Hmmm .... lots of questions here -

1. How long did you give the owner to sort issue?
2. Is he based in UK?
3. Would he have been able to contact you?
4. Did you leave message on voicemail ....
5. How much was villa ....

Suggest that if in Uk, sue ....

Mark

lvm

Did you pay by CC? Not sure if same rules apply but could you try reclaiming through them?

pinkshoes

I'd write to the owner of the villa with a "letter before action" highlighting the problem, enclosing copies of the photos, showing a list of times and methods that you used to contact them, and giving them 14 days to give you a full refund, otherwise you will have no option but to take them to court.

As holidays are so short, then 24 hours would be a reasonable amount of time to give them to sort out the problem. It's not exactly the easiest thing to try and find alternative accommodation, so you did the right thing.

Equaliser123

I think in this case you would entitled to the cost of the place back together with any additional costs which you incurred as a result (e.g. call charges, extra costs in respect of accomodation and compensation for disappointment).

OliKipper

We gave the owner 24 hours before moving out of the villa after attempting to contact them via phone and email. Yes I left a message on voicemail and his brother was also to ask him to contact us.

We heard nothing from him the entire time we were away, and it took a week for him to reply to my complaint email on my return. We've been back for 6 weeks now and we haven't even had the deposit back!

I've asked for him to negotiate a settlement - we had to pay by bank transfer directly to the Canary Islands as that's where his mother has a bank account.

He is based in the UK - I've now given him 48 hours to get back to me or I will take him to small claims court. It was such a dissapointment and I was completely, stupidly caught out by booking via Owners Direct and not taking out their insurance

Flyboy152

I know this may sound like a silly question, but why didn't you just clean up and charge him for your time?

Equaliser123

Flyboy152 wrote: »

I know this may sound like a silly question, but why didn't you just clean up and charge him for your time?

a) why should you clean up a place which you are entitled to expect to find clean.

b) Particularly on holiday.

c) How much would you charge your time at?

visidigi

Equaliser123 wrote: »

c) How much would you charge your time at?

me personally, the entire bloomin cost of the holiday. personally villa holidays are the sort of price where there is no excuse for this, and its made worse when its a captive audience scenario like this one where the OP has had to fork out for alternatives.

Its not like a hotel room where you can just swap...but it does underline the importance of going for locally managed and represented villa sales groups

halibut2209

d) that would be an unenforcable invoice

Flyboy152

visidigi wrote: »

me personally, the entire bloomin cost of the holiday. personally villa holidays are the sort of price where there is no excuse for this, and its made worse when its a captive audience scenario like this one where the OP has had to fork out for alternatives.

Its not like a hotel room where you can just swap...but it does underline the importance of going for locally managed and represented villa sales groups

Which would put you in a much stronger position when you get home. Rather than taking the arbitrary decision to spend someone else's money.