Cancelled an order, threatened with court action

unholyangel

oldoakey wrote: »

It seems to me like you have broken the contract you made when you agreed the price and terms and gave the company a deposit.

The company concerned may have lost out due to the goods being ordered in for the job as well as the fitters cancellation., so in my mind you would not win the case - especially if the retailer has it in their terms that deposits are non refundable, as we have in ours.
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This is largely irrelevant. If they have in their terms its non-refundable and it is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss in all cases, its an unfair term.

By law they can only recover any reasonable losses incurred by them due to the breach - and even then they have a statutory duty to mitigate their losses. Any charge over and above actual loses would be seen as a financial penalty - which again, is an unfair/illegal term.

spacey2012

bris wrote: »

learn about contracts before posting such rubbish again.

What contract ?
Have you read what the OP has written ?
The Debate over who has broken any verbal agreement is also in doubt.
Why could the shop owner not collect the money on completion, why refuse ? because they had to do the work first thats why. .

To be honest given the highly unusual nature of wanting to be paid up front, I wonder if the OP would have ever seen them again let alone had any work done.
You never pay up front in the flooring trade, you may obtain an advance for materials but to demand to be paid up front before a bat is even struck or materials delivered is the mark of a scam artist.

spacey2012

unholyangel wrote: »

This is largely irrelevant. If they have in their terms its non-refundable and it is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss in all cases, its an unfair term.

By law they can only recover any reasonable losses incurred by them due to the breach - and even then they have a statutory duty to mitigate their losses. Any charge over and above actual loses would be seen as a financial penalty - which again, is an unfair/illegal term.

This is 100% correct. :T

Fosterdog

spacey2012 wrote: »

What contract ?
Have you read what the OP has written ?
The Debate over who has broken any verbal agreement is also in doubt.
Why could the shop owner not collect the money on completion, why refuse ? because they had to do the work first thats why. .

To be honest given the highly unusual nature of wanting to be paid up front, I wonder if the OP would have ever seen them again let alone had any work done.
You never pay up front in the flooring trade, you may obtain an advance for materials but to demand to be paid up front before a bat is even struck or materials delivered is the mark of a scam artist.

Or it's the mark of business that has been stung more than once before by people cancelling at the last minute but them still having to pay fitters for a booked day even if it's just a retainer and not the full amount.

I know of numerous places that charge for such work up front to the majority of customers and only allow payment on completion for regular trade customers.

dacouch

spacey2012 wrote: »

Who pays floorlayers for work they have not done, it is a ten a penny trade.

They get laid off.

Royale_Knight

Fosterdog wrote: »

Or it's the mark of business that has been stung more than once before by people cancelling at the last minute but them still having to pay fitters for a booked day even if it's just a retainer and not the full amount.

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In my defence i will say i cancelled the fitters within a couple of hours of booking them so its unlikely i caused a big disruption to their work schedule. Judging by the fact the fitters were able to do the work within 2 days of booking them i would summise their work load was fairly light anyway so i dont see why i should recompense them for that.

pmduk

Isn't it relevant that the contract was made at the OP's home and cancelled within a week?

wealdroam

pmduk wrote: »

Isn't it relevant that the contract was made at the OP's home and cancelled within a week?

Yes, and I did ask for some sort of timescale in post #2.

spacey2012

Fosterdog wrote: »

but them still having to pay fitters for a booked day even if it's just a retainer and not the full amount.

Attempting to push the story about a shop paying a couple of subbies for work they have not even left the house for, let alone done shows that you have absolutely no idea whatsoever about the trade.

Subbies in the flooring game are lucky to work 1 day a week these days, nobody pays them to do anything they have not done and had checked and defects snagged.
As trades go, it is the lowest of the low for work, with far more workers than work, a shop would have no trouble finding a dozen flooring subbies to replace any moaning about not been paid for work they have not done.
Not as if they are plumbers, electricians or gas fitters.

arcon5

You are of course assuming they are not employed directly by the shop. If this is their primary business, it wouldn't be unheard of