Dispute with boarding kennel

Flakey

Hi
Looking for advice/opinions
I left my dogs in a kennel while on holday.
When I collected them they had injuries and one was lame.
The next day the vet discovered she had detached ligaments and she was operated on.
The vets bills are now up to $1700
When I realised the extent of the injuries I cancelled the cheque for the kennel fees and told them I was doing this as I was not satisfied with the service. He said it was our fault as we asked for the dogs to share a kennel ( the dogs are sisters and have always shared a kennel when weve been away)
The kennels are now pursuing me for payment through the small claims court.
Looking for advice - should I pay - I have been scared by the papers received saying I may end up with ccj against me

George_Michael

By cancelling the cheque you have committed a criminal offence so you should pay the money before it goes to court.

You then have the option to chase the kennel management for compensation to cover the vet fees, but in order to have any chance of winning this, you would probably have to prove negligence on the part of the kennel.

Did your vet give any indication as to how the injuries were caused?
If it was down to the 2 dogs fighting, it may be extremely hard to win a case if you had asked for them to both be in the same kennel.

arcon5

Have they actually filed a claim? If so what is the basis for their claim?

If ther claim is simply 'cheque for services cancelled' then you have no defence as cheques are legal tender they will win. If their claim is basically 'payment for fees owed' then lucky escape as you can defend the claim and have a judge resolve it.

If the dogs was fighting, why wouldn't the kennel have simply told you about this ? Especially if work had been done on one of them? Seems odd o me

Flakey

Thanks for the advice so far.
Cancelling the cheque may have been a bit rash.
The kennels are saying we Obtained their servces fraudulently by not paying for them.
The injuries (or at least some of them) do seem to have been because of fighting - they are sisters and been brought up together and do not normally fight. He had not noticed until I collected them that one was lame.
I dont think I can be held responsible - I was not there - I had asked him to take care of them - if there was a problem he could have contacted me - he could have separated them - would be happier with that than them returning in the state they did.

marmitepotato

You need to pay the money, they fed, watered, housed, walked your dogs while you were away. The injury is a separate issue.

Dogs when left in kennels act differently from their home environment. Maybe something happened to whip the dogs up into a frenzy in another kennel which may have sparked off a spat between your two dogs and in a close environment there is no where to run and hide. Maybe they were jumping excessivly, maybe they caught their claws in the fencing of the kennel.


You need to ring the kennels, make an appointment and go and talk about this. Simply cancelling the cheque is not the answer. Are your dogs insured? If so they should pick up the vets bills.


Hope you manage to sort it out, and your dogs are on the road to recovery.

visidigi

Flakey wrote: »

He had not noticed until I collected them that one was lame.

That for me would strike me as not taking due care, as they should have noticed that, the tricky thing is defining when that actually happened.

At the point that was noticed they should have been separated.

In saying that, I know our two dogs would go in together, they would also play/flight etc etc and if they were separated they would cry/whine as they become anxious when they are not together.

Overall, this is what pet insurance is for. If you don't have it and you're complaining about the consequential vet fees then I am sorry, but an element of this is on you for that.

Vets, they're very expensive when things require surgery.

antrobus

George_Michael wrote: »

By cancelling the cheque you have committed a criminal offence so you should pay the money before it goes to court....

Really?

It's not against the law to stop a cheque.

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/debt_e/debt_banking_e/cheques.htm

Can't get any clearer than that. It's only a criminal offence if you hand over a cheque with the specific intention of stopping it later. Clearly that does not apply to the OP who only stopped the cheque after they'd "realised the extent of the injuries".

George_Michael wrote: »

...
You then have the option to chase the kennel management for compensation to cover the vet fees, but in order to have any chance of winning this, you would probably have to prove negligence on the part of the kennel.

Since the kennels are now pursuing the OP "for payment through the small claims court" there is no need for the OP to 'chase' anything. If the OP chooses to fight the case, then they would counter-claim for damages. And the OP does not have to 'prove' anything. This would be a civil case; the balance of probabilities applies.

arcon5 wrote: »

... cheques are legal tender...

"They are not legal tender"

http://www.ukpayments.org.uk/payment_options/cheques_bankers_drafts/

arcon5

marmitepotato wrote: »

You need to pay the money, they fed, watered, housed, walked your dogs while you were away. The injury is a separate issue.

Dogs when left in kennels act differently from their home environment. Maybe something happened to whip the dogs up into a frenzy in another kennel which may have sparked off a spat between your two dogs and in a close environment there is no where to run and hide. Maybe they were jumping excessivly, maybe they caught their claws in the fencing of the kennel.


You need to ring the kennels, make an appointment and go and talk about this. Simply cancelling the cheque is not the answer. Are your dogs insured? If so they should pick up the vets bills.


Hope you manage to sort it out, and your dogs are on the road to recovery.

I disagree. The injury if caused by their negligence and payment for services are related. Had this been a standard 30-day invoice type payment I would recommend op pay a fair amount and leave the rest in dispute. Had they held the animals in lien then op could pay under protest and then afterwards dispute the invoice. However, op paid by cheque and unfortunately didn't realise until a later time. And unfortunately you cannot just cancel cheques willy nilly, a cheque is a promise to pay and there are few defences accepted by the courts for cancelling a cheque (such as you have received nothing at all, issued fraudulently etc) so a counter claim would probably have to be issued separately because of this

marmitepotato

I see your point Arcon5, but the kennel fees still need to be paid. What if a dog went into kennels looking in perfect health, they were then ill with a latent problem that manifested itself whilst in kennels. Would you expect the kennels to waiver the fees because your dog was ill? Would it have been a lack of due care and attention by the boarding kennels that the dog happened to present symptoms on their premises? Boarding kennels would soon be out of business if this was the case.

The OP needs to go back to the kennels to discuss this and come to an amicable agreement. I really really hope OP has insurance.

CoolHotCold

You can pay under duress, and contest the payment later, but you have to pay now before you end up with a CCJ on your record.


You can always claim it back from the kennel if you can reasonably prove they didn't look after your dogs, however as it stands now, the kennel provided a service and you skipped payment.

In other words, you contest the service now you could loose and end up with a CCJ against you.
If you pay, and than claim they were negligent or didn't do due care towards the dogs and you loose you won't have a CCJ against you.


In the balance of risk, always err on the side of caution. Pay under duress, it's far less risky and takes none of your rights away from you.

arcon5

A CCJ is only registered against you if it goes unpaid after 30 days. Although if they are filing on the sole basis of cancelled cheque paying under duress as above is recommended to avoid having to pay court fees.

What if a dog went into kennels looking in perfect health, they were then ill with a latent problem that manifested itself whilst in kennels. Would you expect the kennels to waiver the fees because your dog was ill?

That's a completely different situation and not arisen as a result of the care provided.


Op really needs to establish fully what happened and perhaps get a professional opinion as with no kind of evidence this claim is going nowhere.