Small claim court for holiday compensation

me-at-work

Ive put a small claim in against a holiday company as we paid £5050 for a 2 week holiday to Florida last August for a private villa and the villa wasn't up to standard; the pool was unsafe, the villa was dirty, the water got cut off the list goes on & on. We were offered £300 then £500 compensation from the company before we decided to take it to small claims court. We were told by the court we had to go via mediation initially during which the holiday company offered us £1000 which we rejected and decided to continue through the court.
We sent all of the evidence; initial complaint, pictures, video evidence etc only to find yesterday when I got home that the
court has returned everything that I sent them saying that they only want a document setting out the breaches of contract. we thought that we had already done this in a bullet point letter that was with all of the other evidence. Were not sure what to do now..............help!

peachyprice

Send a letter back to the court detailing the breach of contract, perhaps elaborate on the bullet point letter you already sent. Detail the items that were different to advertised and any costs you incurred to put them right.

Small claims court isn't interested in, emotions, distress, loss of enjoyment etc., only hard cold facts of what the breach of contacts were and how much you are out of pocket as a result.

How much of the £5050 total holiday did the accommodation costs account for? Depending on how many of you were travelling and whether or not the total included park tickets and car hire I wouldn't have thought much more than the £1000 offered.

me-at-work

Thanks, we were debating whether it would be worth proceeding or not

peachyprice

See if you can price the individual elements of the holiday to find the true cost of the villa. Villas in Florida are a so cheap now due to the recession, you should be able to find rental prices of similar villas on the same estate on Owners Direct.

TBH, I think their offer of £1000 is pretty fair as long as it's cash, not vouchers. You're never going to get the whole holiday costs back because one element was not s expected.

meer53

You can easily get 2 weeks in a villa in Florida for less than £1000. You're not going to get a full refund if thats what you're hoping for. I'd accept it if it was still available. You could argue for more but would it be worth it ?

jonesMUFCforever

Strip out the flight costs. your food costs, car-hire , parks etc and how much did the villa cost?
Was it bad enough for you to leave and stay elsewhere?


If not then I would take the grand.
If mediation fails you may find a judge awarding you less.

jackieblack

meer53 wrote: »

You're not going to get a full refund if thats what you're hoping for. I'd accept it if it was still available.

I agree

Zzzzzzzzz