Relationship breakdown - deposit for wedding

Fosterdog

For those of you saying that insurance should have been taken out, I'm not sure as I've never planned a wedding but I'm pretty sure most if not all wedding insurance has exclusions for the couple separating. It is there to protect against things like the venue or caterer etc. failing to meet their side of the contract.

unholyangel

DavidP24 wrote: »

Oh Gosh, this is totally irrelevant because the contract is with the father not the OP, the OP has no standing in that contract so pointless wittering on about mitigation.

Yes of course they have to mitigate loss but there have been a thousand of these on radio and the venue always says we tried to sell it but nobody wanted it,

Nobody on this thread is going to sue the venue so again pointless.

There is another factor, the Father raised the daughter and so may be liable for her bad decision making in breaking up with OP and if the Son broke up with her because she was unreasonable then that too parents fault.

Of course the Father should have taken out insurance, to mitigate any potential loss.

In case you did not realise it this is not about the venue it is about the legal case of Father of Bride taking case against would be Groom.

If you actually have some input on that, it would be gratefully received.

We have no idea who the contract was actually with - all we know is that the father covered the financial expense of the deposits. For that same reason, it is totally relevant and not at all pointless discussing mitigation.

For that same reason yet again you cannot state that the father should have taken out insurance (putting aside what I said above about law not penalising someone for not insuring against this scenario, especially when that something was wholly outwith their control). The contract could be with the son & ex with the father just helping out by covering deposits for them or perhaps not even that, perhaps it was just supposed to be a loan with them paying him back.

Ah so now we've changed from "that it is indeed their right to keep every penny" and "they can, at their discretion sell it on" to "yes of course they have to mitigate loss".

Why not just admit you don't have a clue what you are talking about?

Gloomendoom

DavidP24 wrote: »

No Insurance has to be specified to start immediately and then it covers break ups, type Wedding break up and you will see all the ads are for the insurance that states same

I had a quick look and the first policy I looked at (Debenhams) seems to exclude deciding not to marry.

What am I not covered for under my Wedding Insurance policy?

There are some situations that you are not covered for. The most significant exclusions of this policy are set out below;

 Deciding not to marry or undertake the Civil Partnership Ceremony and associated celebrations is not a situation covered by this policy.

unholyangel

DavidP24 wrote: »

Well let's AssUme it was a contract with Prince Philip then, we might as well as it would be just as practical.

We have to go by what the OP said, she said the Father paid.

#Yawn.

The OP said the father paid the deposits - they did not say the father made the booking or even that the father was paying for the entire thing, only that he had paid the deposits.

Even if he had paid for the entire thing, it does not dictate who the contracting parties are (if it did, it would get very complicated when buying anything with credit/finance) - and if you understood even the basics of contract law you'd know that already.

DavidP24 wrote: »

Sorry I should have elaborated, what they said on radio is everyone says there was an illness in the family and wedding had to be cancelled.

Is this in relation to mitigation or the insurance? If the former, the reason makes no difference to the obligation to mitigate. If the latter.....surely it can't be the latter as that would be fraud.

Pollycat

DavidP24 wrote: »

No Insurance has to be specified to start immediately and then it covers break ups, type Wedding break up and you will see all the ads are for the insurance that states same

I'm not sure what search engine you're using but that gets me all sorts of hits but none relating to ads for insurance.

However, 'wedding cancellation insurance' does get quite a lot of ads offering insurance.

Have you looked at any of those?

I've looked (admittedly skimmed) half a dozen and didn't see any that offer insurance for break up.
Illness - yes.
Plus all the other stuff that you'd expect, including marquee cover, failure of suppliers (including venue, flowers).

But that is all irrelevant as it doesn't sound like insurance was taken out and the issue of whether it would even have covered this break up anyway doesn't matter.

Guest101

saintscouple wrote: »

Hi,

I'm after some opinions in regards to my sons dilemma,

He was in a relationship with a girl and due to wed this November, however the relationship broke down and they split in February this year.

The father of his ex-partner had paid a deposit for the wedding venue and the caterers, and for the past 6 weeks has been sending my son demands for him to pay that money back.
(there is no written agreement that he was going to pay the deposit back even if they did wed)

My son ignored these letters, but today has received court letters where there is a claim for £4k, this includes interest. My son has 14 days to submit a defense.

I've advised my son to take all letters and this document to a solicitor for them to deal with but he's afraid he won't be able to afford their fees.

Does anyone have any advice on what he should do, or the chances that he could be liable for this money? As for me until he received the court letters today, it seemed a lot of hot air and there is no way that this money could be made enforceable.

No intention to create legal relations. The money was not loaned to him and the FIL never expected it to be paid back.


It cant magically become a loan.


Solicitor will tell you the same thing.

Ronaldo_Mconaldo

Couldn't the son tell the dad to tell his daughter to try meet somone else and marry them instead thereby preventing the wedding day being wasted. There'll probably be loads of people up for a marriage of convenience once we have finally "Brexit-ed".

unholyangel

Guest101 wrote: »

No intention to create legal relations. The money was not loaned to him and the FIL never expected it to be paid back.


It cant magically become a loan.


Solicitor will tell you the same thing.

The OP only said there was no written agreement for him to repay the money.

Not quite the same thing as saying there was never any agreement to repay the money.

TBagpuss

OP, your son needs to respond to the court papers as if he doesn't, Judgement can be netered against him in defauly. He neds to read the pack sent to him to ensure that he returns the correct forms within the correct timescale.

Assuming that his position is that his ex's father paid the deposit either as part of an arrangement between Ex and Ex's dad that he was not a part of, then he needs to say that,.

If it was part of an arrangement involving both him and ex but was expressed as a gift then he needs to say that.

Who actually signed the agreement with the venue? If he and his fiancee did so then he needs to check the paperwork and express his willingness to take whatever steps are necessary to cancel and reclaim any refundable portion of the deposit (if any) and confirm that he is happy to give his ex authority to reclaim any refund due, from the venue, on his behalf.

Morally, it would be reasonable for him to share the costs of the cancellation so if the non-returnable deposits total £4,000 then it would be reasonable to offer to pay £2,000. However, he needs to be a little careful how he does so to ensure that he does not inadvertenyly admit liability.

A letter sent separately to his ex, marked 'without prejudice';'a nd specifcally stating that while he does not belive that there is any legal liability as the funds provided by her parents/ dad were a gift, he accepts that it was a gift to both of them and is prepared to offer to give dad £2,000 (or a lesser amountif there are other wedding costs which e has bourne and feels ought to be factored in) payable in installments (f necessary) and on the strict understanding that Dad withdraws the claim and acknowledges that there is no legal debt.

It is a great pity that he ignored the initial communication instead of trying to discuss it. Has he actually spoke directly to the venue or checked the contract with them to confirm whether anything is refundable? £4,000 sounds a lot for a non-refundable deposit, it may be that some of it would be refundable either now, or later if the venue is able to get a new booking.

pphillips

Not sure why this post is still going on when the OP has not come back.

The OP's son simply needs to defend the claim on the basis that it does not disclose a valid cause of action because:
A. There was no contract between the groom and the father of the bride, and
B. Even if there was a contract between the groom and the father of the bride, that contract is unenforceable at law as it falls within section 1 of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1970.