cancelled french villa - owner threatening legal action

Bob_the_Saver

It is quite clear that the OP booked the property and for sad reasons the thread explains now does not want to go there.
Why should the owner who has fulfilled their part of the deal lose out?

philip1988

Dave - Asking for the money now before Juky is just bullying tactics and should be ignored. It is unclear if legally you have to pay the outstanding balance, however if you do (and without any other information in T&C) the villa owner has to mitigate any potential loss and try and relet the villa, if he does at a reduced rate he can charge you the difference.. If he can't relet he can't charge you for services such as heating and lighting, cleaning services that you haven't used and would therefore increase his profit

It seems to me that he wants the money and then sit back and do nothing.

As has been said before let the insurance company decide and claim from them if it turns out you have to pay.

Good luck

Delree

In any case you would think the owner had insurance against late cancels and no shows.

knightstyle

Delree, We ran a B&B plus let our house for holidays (moved into a caravan in the garden) in France for several years, we had all the necessary insurances etc but when people cancelled at short notice this was not covered by the insurance. Perhaps we could have paid more to include this but only bookings through "Gites de France" gave us any protection, private bookings we stood the loss.
By the way the only cancellations we had, 3 of them, were from Brits and only one offered to pay towards making up our loss.

sillygoose

In moral terms yes the op probably should pay up, poor villa owner lost money and if it was a UK cottage I no doubt would pay...

But as the owner is French.. I would probably find my hand refusing to obey when it came to writing the cheque _pale_

If that makes me a bad person well that's the way it is.

mcja

I have to be honest,I fail to understand the "because he is French I....." comments. So if the owner was in Scotland would some answers be different?

TopQuark

sillygoose wrote: »

But as the owner is French..

I wouldn't be so sure. They could well be English. OH is French and from a Provencal village (although we live in Switzerland). It seems that half the village has been bought up by vile, obnoxious British toffs whose behaviour and attitude is, on average, disgusting.

I was introduced to one 'Arabella and Crispin', who looked like they'd been force-fed dog !!!!! when I told them that I was originally from Birmingham. Couldn't speak a word of French either, the clueless morons.

And to the OP, I am really sorry to hear your sad news. I certainly wouldn't give into the the bully-boy tactics until you have a clearer idea of what's what. Out of interest, is the villa owner actually French or foreign? If the latter then it's highly likely that their grasp of French law is low to non-existant, so it's a reasonably safe gamble to ignore them completely.

Bob_the_Saver

TopQuark wrote: »

I wouldn't be so sure. They could well be English. OH is French and from a Provencal village (although we live in Switzerland). It seems that half the village has been bought up by vile, obnoxious British toffs whose behaviour and attitude is, on average, disgusting.

I was introduced to one 'Arabella and Crispin', who looked like they'd been force-fed dog !!!!! when I told them that I was originally from Birmingham. Couldn't speak a word of French either, the clueless morons.

And to the OP, I am really sorry to hear your sad news. I certainly wouldn't give into the the bully-boy tactics until you have a clearer idea of what's what. Out of interest, is the villa owner actually French or foreign? If the latter then it's highly likely that their grasp of French law is low to non-existant, so it's a reasonably safe gamble to ignore them completely.

They send their regards by the way.

TopQuark

Bob_the_Saver wrote: »

They send their regards by the way.

Damn, are they still breathing? I'd hoped that one of the locals would have drowned them both in the lake by now.

Oh and please tell them that everyone thinks the solid marble wild boar statue they had done is awful!

Poppy9

knightstyle wrote: »

Delree, We ran a B&B plus let our house for holidays (moved into a caravan in the garden) in France for several years, we had all the necessary insurances etc but when people cancelled at short notice this was not covered by the insurance. Perhaps we could have paid more to include this but only bookings through "Gites de France" gave us any protection, private bookings we stood the loss.
By the way the only cancellations we had, 3 of them, were from Brits and only one offered to pay towards making up our loss.

but as you were running a business you would have known that cancellations were a risk and should have adapted your pricing structure to cover this.

That is what the OP has to remember. The villa owner is a business man and as part of running a business he has to take account of known risks etc.