Unfair gym contracts

fluffnutter

Following the landmark Ashbourne Management Company ruling last year, it seems like the OFT is getting tougher on gym contracts in general.

Personally I think this is great news.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/jan/27/la-fitness-knockout-blow-gym-contracts?newsfeed=true

mo786uk

I suppose you have to look at it from both sides. Gym owners will say they need longish contratcs (12 months at least) so that they can plan/budget ahead and know how much money they have coming in.
The reason why they don't cave in to everyone for any reaosn is because people will effectivley cancel contracts all the time for whatever reason they want.

As regards to the OFT and contract lengths. I think 12 months is a reasonable length of tiem for a contract, by the sounds of the report the OFT won't necessarily be interfereing with that.

At the end of the day, (subject to unfair terms legislation and other consumer proteciton legislation) consumers are free to ocntract on whatever terms they want - its a free market. So I think the OFTs pwoers are limited to some extent.

arcon5

From what i'm reading, LA Fitness have the following provisions:

if you're made redundant they allow you to cancel
if you're pregnant you are allowed to freeze the membership

I also thought they had a clause whereby if you moved and was over x miles from one of their clubs you can leave also.


I think the only unfair aspect of this is the term length -- which they should also take some responsibility for. 24 months is an excessive contract and has been said to be unfair by a judge already in a previous case. Not sure what people are thinking when they sign these contracts tbh!!


So what it looks like they have done is terminate the latter 12 months of the contract and charge (via a payment plan) the remainder of a 12 month period. Although as we saw in the more recent gym court case, this would amount to a 'penalty', therefore unlawful. Add court fees to the case they would likely end up paying overall about £200ish.