Really bad experience with housetrip

Cpu2007

Does anyone know if housetrip is regulated by someone.
citizen advice bureau told me to check if they're regulated by someone and if not then take them to court.

NiftyDigits

Cpu2007 wrote: »

I did not email ryan as it looks like his posts have been removed.
I decided to contact houstrip directly

You should have contacted him. Up to you.

InsideInsurance

Do you have Legal Expenses cover on your home insurance?

Citizens Advice mean well but rarely are well trained on things outside of debt and benefits. To take the website to court you'd need to prove that despite the terms on the site that the contract actually is with the site and not with the house owner as their terms state. This isnt going to be that straight forward and before spending more money on court fees etc then it may be worth getting proper legal advice.

Thankfully they do name English law as the jurisdiction for the contract but the fact they are Switzerland based is going to potentially confuse things. There is no evidence of them being regulated by anyone but I have no idea on Swiss law if they should actually be.

Cpu2007

I don't have Legal Expenses cover on my home.
Do you have any recommendation about where I can get legal advice(I believe you're referring to free legal advice) before setting for court?

I understand that their terms and conditions exempt them from any responsibility but the route I want to take is about the way they handled the situation; their emergency line was supposed to help us,however all they did was make the situation worse by sending a family and an unsuitable and unsafe accommodation.

One thing that is puzzling me is about many people that keep saying to read terms and conditions and or this wasn't part of their terms and conditions so they're not responsible.

My question is, how are such companies allowed to write terms and conditions that have nothing but to safeguards themselves. Shouldn't there be a law on companies that doesn't allow companies to put whatever rules they want in their terms and conditions?

InsideInsurance

I dont have a recommendation, you'd be best off speaking to a local solicitor but I doubt you can cram everything in the free 30 minutes you normally get as they'd need to review the terms fully. My concern for you is that you end up spending more money and not get anything back.

Companies cannot simply write whatever T&Cs they want as we have consumer protection law etc which contracts cannot over ride but whilst a few things are "clear cut" the vast majority are actually rather wooly in nature and so its a case of arguing the matter.

As an easy example the law says you cannot have penalty clauses, ie payments for breach of contract must be proportional to the losses sustained. Actually proving what the losses are can be difficult hence the investigation into charges re over limit/ late payment etc for credit cards took months to come to a conclusion of what is reasonable.

Cpu2007

I have already filed a small claim court,went through mediation but not getting anywhere as they are not admitting liability.

At the moment I have 12 hours to decide whether to stop here or proceed with court hearing.

I really feel like putting this forward but obviously have to consider the fact that might not be a sensible action considering that I am being told I don't have legal stand.


will appreciate any thought/critic from you guys, it might help me decide on how to proceed.

thank you