cancelled french villa - owner threatening legal action

Delree

Exactly. When you run a business you have to accept a certain amount of risk. That's the world we live in and certainly non-refundable deposits are a good way to mitigate this particular risk.
This owner has his deposit so that's the end of the story and op has no moral obligation to pay for a holiday they won't and can't have despite 99% of people here thinking they should.

mcfisco

Delree wrote: »

Exactly. When you run a business you have to accept a certain amount of risk. That's the world we live in and certainly non-refundable deposits are a good way to mitigate this particular risk.
This owner has his deposit so that's the end of the story and op has no moral obligation to pay for a holiday they won't and can't have despite 99% of people here thinking they should.

True, and if it were me, the deposit is likely to be all he'd ever get unless my insurance agreed to pay the remainder.

But as well as accepting and planning for the risks of cancellations the owner would be silly not to chase for the full amount and see how it pans out, there's no point rolling over until the big bird has finished warming up her tonsils. In fact, it should be part of his risk plan.

Dunroamin

Delree wrote: »

Is this not what deposits are for? I can't understand this owner and all you coming down on his side. When you book a hotel they say they'll take the first night off your card for a no show or late cancel. This guy has his 480 deposit - end of, good night and shut up.

You can't compare different types of holiday arrangements. If the OP had booked a package holiday or a budget flight he would have already paid the balance and would have automatically lost the lot.

None of these examples is relevant to the case in hand.

daveshipway

Hi there,

Dave (the OP) here.

I just thought I would update you all on what has happened with this, partly because I said I would and partly because this thread seems to be generating a lot of interest.

As I mentioned, I asked my original question about the my possible legal position both on MSE and also on a British ex-pats living in France website that I found by chance.

I got some very good advice from one particular gentlemen on this website, who asked me to post the original French translation of the contract. He advised me that the wording of the deposit referred to it as an “arrhes”, which meant that we had lost the deposit but that the owner cannot ask you to pay anything further if you cancel (and that the villa owner should be aware of this). This was the sort of advice I was hoping for, but then further posts started to mention other French legislation, so I still remained slightly unsure where I stood. We e-mailed the villa owner and highlighted the “arrhes” in the contract and asked for clarification on this. His response was (again) particularly nasty and basically along the lines of “well if you are going to play that card….” and signed off that he would be making a complaint about what had happened (not sure to who ?).

In the meantime we contacted our travel insurers and asked them what we should do about paying any additional money. They were about as much use as a chocolate teapot and basically said it is up to us. Great.

Anyway, still unsure as to what to do, we contacted the villa owner and decided to offer him some extra money so that I at least met him halfway i.e that he would have a total of 600 euros including the 480 euro deposit we had previously sent. He then came back and said that if he got three-quarters of his money (i.e 900 euros) he would accept that and drop his “complaint”. I probably should have tried to negotiate further, but I decided just to accept. I just wanted this all to be over. I am going to have to be away from home and down with my mum quite a lot over the new few weeks/months, and what I don’t want on top of everything else is to come home to find letters from French solicitors. Even then, he initially refused to send us a cancellation *invoice* until we had sent the additional payment to him – this is the type of person he is.

I’m sure that, again, this will split opinion. I’m sure some people will say that this still isn’t enough and I should have paid the full amount. I am also sure that some will say that I should have tried to fight this further, but to be honest I haven’t got the stomach for it and there are more important things going on. Interestingly, over on the ex-pats website the vast majority of people (including gite owners) suggest that I should have just left the villa owner with his deposit, and that I was being treated unfairly.

As to the moral question of whether I should have paid in full after cancelling or not, all I can say is this. Yes I felt guilty about having to cancel the booking. However this quickly disappeared after having to deal with the villa owner. The e-mails we have had from him have been nasty, insulting and bullying. He made no attempt to try and work anything out with us. He could, for example, at least attempted to try and re-let the property, or maybe have allowed us to move our booking to a different week sometime in the future (his rates are the same year-round). So after all that did I feel morally obliged to pay him ? No. Did I want him off my back ? Yes.

I am sorry to hear the plight of French villa/gite owners, but to be honest lots of people are suffering in the current economic situation, and as for this particular guy, if he went out of business (unlikely – he is fully booked up for the rest of the year bar a couple of weeks) I wouldn’t lose any sleep.

So now we are just left with the travel insurance. Having read this forum, my expectation of getting anything back is now nil, but worth a try. I don’t think it is unreasonable in trying to claim. Yes my mum is elderly, but at the time of booking we had no reason to think she had cancer. However, as has been pointed out we have chosen not to travel and I think it likely they will quote this as a reason not to pay anything, but I would like to know how many people would go off on holiday 3 ½ weeks after finding their parent had only 3 months to live ?

Thanks once again for all the kind words.

Cheers,

Dave

Bob_the_Saver

Thanks for the update, I think a total of 900 euros is fairish as they won't have cleaning, heat & light, wear and tear etc. If they 'agree' and it sorts it that's good news. As you say you don't want to find a pile of French letters!
Put in a claim on the travel insurance, the worst that happens is they say no.

Can't exactly say hope all goes well with your mum, but I think you know what I mean.

travelgran

Your insurance may pay up. Ours did without question in a very similar situation. We had to get a letter from the doctor concerning the diagnosis.