Venue Hire - Desposit Refund

Fire_Fox

Most reasonable people would consider ten days a late cancellation, at such short notice you should have written a letter of cancellation not waited for them to tell you if they wanted one. If you are in a contract an e-mail is really not the proper way to cancel that, sorry but that is lazy. IMO they are within their rights to ask for the balance that you should have paid three weeks before the event.

Ciderdrinker

Fire Fox,

That is a very good point.

I would normally send a formal letter as well as an email. Now the problem here is that none of there paper work has a postal address, their email address (a hotmail account) does not seem to be monitored and I have only been able to contact them by phone once.

So the only other option would have been to hand deliver a letter.

Forwandert

How where you going to find your way there?

Usually a quick Google of the golf course or phone number will bring up some sort of address details. They must have been contactable at least twice. Once to book and once as mentioned in your OP re cancellation.

arcon5

Ciderdrinker wrote: »

Similarly if what you say is true "Or if the cancellation is so late they could have grounds to reject the cancellation." And this has not been specified in the T&Cs they could make it up?

In the absence of terms or where there is ambiguity a judge would base a judgement on what is 'reasonable'.

Also based on implied terms (as another member mentioned)... for example, when you as a consumer purchase goods, irrespective of what the retailers terms may or may not say you have implied rights in accordance with the Sales of Goods Act and/or any other relevant law.

The absence of details in T&Cs can give one party more rights than the other?

It's not they have more rights than you - it's that they have the right to not suffer consequential losses if you breach the agreement. And in return if they cancelled at last minute and you booked elsewhere (assuming like for like and assuming you tried to mitigate your losses) then you could have a case to pursue them for any extra monies paid.

unholyangel

Stating a deposit is non-refundable is generally a bad idea in contracts because unless it is a genuine pre-estimate of the loss they incurred due to you cancelling, it would be considered an unfair contract term and thus unenforceable. It may be possible to state a genuine pre-estimate of loss in some types of business, but I wouldn't ever think this would be one of them as there are too many variables (such as when they cancel, if they can rehire etc).

I doubt they would be able to force you to continue the contract. Either party can usually dissolve the contract - but are liable for the losses incurred by the other party as a result of their breach.

Venues for parties/birthdays/weddings are usually booked months in advance. So personally anything within a month I'd consider to be late cancellation as there is next to no chance of them rehiring within a month - of course that is a generalisation of the industry and if the business in question regularly get bookings for the next week or so, then i'd say the late cancellation is questionable along with no refund of the deposit.

And btw, members dont usually bring in as much money as functions do.....otherwise why on earth would they accept functions? So not entirely sure your point of the hall normally being used by members (after a poster said about them not being able to rehire to anyone else) has any relevance/as much relevance as you think.

ILW

Could the club not pursue OP for further losses beyond the £50.00 deposit. eg if they could show they had turned away another booking worth thousands for that date?

wealdroam

ILW wrote: »

Could the club not pursue OP for further losses beyond the £50.00 deposit. eg if they could show they had turned away another booking worth thousands for that date?

Yes, as Fire Fox suggested yesterday afternoon.

munchpot

A bit OT but I remember quiet a few years ago one of the holiday companies (Thomson I think) did 'Deposits of £1' and loads of people booked, then didn't cough up when the time came to pay the balance, thinking they would only lose £1. Quite a few lost a lot more than than when the holiday company pursued them for the holiday costs when they couldn't re-sell them

Wouldn't that be the same - ie sue for losses incurred?