Wedding cancellation - lost deposit

agrinnall

What is it about the term "non-refundable" that you don't understand? If you'd wanted to make the deposit refundable you should have either negotiated that when agreeing the contract or gone to another provider who offers it as a matter of course. You might be able to use the law to get some of the money back, but morally you don't have a leg to stand on.

unholyangel

They don't have a claim for the whole contract price because the services haven't been performed. Wrongful cancellation is a breach of contract which means they're limited to a reasonable pre-estimate of their losses or actual losses.

Unfair Terms Guidance by CMA

See the sections titled "retention of prepayments on consumer cancellation" and also "disproportionate financial sanctions"

In particular, these paragraphs:

5.13.3 Where customers bring the contract to an end without any justification, and
the trader suffers loss as a result, they cannot expect a full refund of all prepayments.
But a term under which they always lose everything they
have paid in advance, regardless of the amount of any costs and losses
caused by the termination, is at risk of being considered an unfair financial
sanction

5.13.5 Fairness is more likely to be achieved for such a term by ensuring that it
does not go beyond the ordinary legal position. Generally, where the
contract comes to an end because of the fault of the consumer, the
business is entitled to hold back from any refund of prepayments what is
likely to be reasonably needed to cover either its net costs or the net loss of
profit resulting directly from the default (see paragraph 5.14.3 below on the
need to avoid double counting). There is no entitlement to any sum that
could reasonably be saved by, for example, finding another customer.

5.13.6 Alternatively, there may be no objection to a prepayment which is set low
enough that it merely reflects the ordinary expenses necessarily entailed
for the trader. A genuine ‘deposit’– which is a reservation fee not an
advance payment – may legitimately be kept in full, as payment for the
reservation. But such a deposit will not normally be more than a small
percentage of the price. A larger prepayment is necessarily more likely to
give rise to fairness issues, for instance being seen as a disguised penalty

5.14.1 It is unfair to impose disproportionate sanctions for breach of contract. A
requirement to pay more in compensation for a breach than a reasonable
pre-estimate of the loss caused to the trader is one kind of sanction that is
liable to be considered disproportionate. Such a requirement may be void
to the extent that it amounts to a penalty under English common law.

5.14.6 Termination charges. A term which says, or is calculated to suggest, that
inflated sums could be claimed (or retained from prepayments) if the
consumer ends the contract is likely to be challenged as unfair. For
example, a charge for wrongful termination that requires payment of the
whole contract price, or a large part of it, is likely to be unfair if in some
cases the business could reasonably reduce (‘mitigate’) its loss. If, for
example, it could find another customer, generally, the law would allow it to
claim no more than the likely costs of doing so, together with any difference
between the original price and the resale price

BarryBlue

JoBobT wrote: »

We've recently had to cancel our wedding, due to money issues. We paid our venue £1100 non refundable deposit. Obviously at the time we didn't think we'd have to cancel so thought nothing of it. The venue refuse to return any of the deposit and I feel it is unfair as the date was April 2018 and there was plenty of time to re sell that date.
Is there anything we can do to try and claim back? Would a small claims court look in our favour or we would we likely to end up with more money to fork out 😞
Any help greatly appreciated.

Please don't take any notice of the barrack room lawyers on MSE who invariably jump into these threads and say 'Tough luck, you're entitled to nowt!' Take no notice of the term 'non-refundable deposit' either. It is nonsense.

As Cono1717 and Unholyangel have explained, the business can only keep an amount that reflects their actual losses. They know it too, but will usually point to terms such as 'non-refundable' to fob you off. That would be held by a court to be an unfair contract term as it is in effect a penalty charge, not their costs.

I have been down this exact road with my daughter a few years back, and the venue, photographer, disco man and cake woman all initially refused to refund deposits, despite it being 18 months before the cancelled wedding. In the end I recovered every penny from all of them, over £2500, because they had incurred very minimal costs. So do your homework on the law and don't be afraid to use the Small Claims Court if you need to. Good luck.

As for morally not having a leg to stand on - :rotfl::rotfl:

JoBobT

agrinnall wrote: »

What is it about the term "non-refundable" that you don't understand? If you'd wanted to make the deposit refundable you should have either negotiated that when agreeing the contract or gone to another provider who offers it as a matter of course. You might be able to use the law to get some of the money back, but morally you don't have a leg to stand on.

Very helpful advice, thanks :T

JoBobT

Thank you BarryBlue. I will write to the venue and see how I get on

KeithP

BarryBlue wrote: »

Please don't take any notice of the barrack room lawyers on MSE who invariably jump into these threads and say 'Tough luck, you're entitled to nowt!'

And please tell us why your opinion is so much better than anyone else's?

Yes, I did note that you told us that you 'recovered every penny from all of them', but does that obviously unsubstantiated point make your opinion any more valid?

Of course you are entitled to offer your opinion and guidance, but to denigrate others is inappropriate.

Kaye1

I do the paperwork for the weddings we run- and it can be time consuming. I send the initial emails and set up meetings. I take notes from the walk through/meeting, then I type them up and manually check off all the points to ensure I haven't missed anything.

If needed, I ask the chef to write a specific menu and set up menu tastings.

I then make up a wedding pack with the next steps/info etc and send it on.

In this situation of cancellation, we would work out how much time I had spent doing this, postage etc then refund the difference. It certainly wouldn't have been over £1000 of work at this stage!

Take into account the amount of meetings you have had and roughly how long they took, make an allowance for the paperwork/letters that have been completed, any menu work etc and then I would write to the company asking for the difference.

I hope this is helpful- good luck.

JoBobT

Thank you, that is really helpful.
We haven't had any meetings, not had any contact since booking. So hopefully positive news 😊

BarryBlue

KeithP wrote: »

And please tell us why your opinion is so much better than anyone else's?

Yes, I did note that you told us that you 'recovered every penny from all of them', but does that obviously unsubstantiated point make your opinion any more valid?

Of course you are entitled to offer your opinion and guidance, but to denigrate others is inappropriate.

I am stating what the law says. Suffice to say that it is not just a layman's opinion. Yes, I have no means of proving my experiences, nor my qualification to express that opinion, but then this is just an internet forum. The legal position is available for anyone to check, it's a pity people don't do so.

Many people on this forum love putting in their two penn'orth on legal matters without the slightest idea of civil law. Often they base it on what they think the law should be. It is perfectly reasonable to 'denigrate' advice which is palpably wrong in law, as it is misleading to the OP. You should really be asking why people are willing to post such incorrect and misleading information.

bris

In Unholyangels post look for the term "loss of profit", this will eat up most if not all the £1100, so you can just ignore Barryblue's jibberish.


The key point you need to look out for is if they have resold the venue on the day of question, this would entitle you to most of the deposit back.