Local Hall Refusing To Return Deposit

Jed_Exodus

We recently had a party on a Saturday night at our local Hall
for my daughter's 16th birthday. The terms and conditions contained all the usual about cleaning up and leaving tidy. However we were then offered by the hall a "cleaning and clearing service" for £80. The lady who sold it said in an email that we would just need to leave at midnight and their caretaker would take care of cleaning. Which we thought was a very good deal.

Too good to be true it seems, they now want to retain £228 of our £400 deposit for cleaning the hall! As far as I, and anyone else I've spoken to since are concerned it wasn't anymore untidy than you would expect after a Saturday night party with 100 guests, of which they were fully aware when offering the service.

I've told them if they don't return the remainder in two weeks them I'm taking it to the small claims court. They've come back pleading poverty as they're a registered charity.

My opinion is if they couldn't carry out the service for the price quoted then they shouldn't they shouldn't have offered it at all. Before they offered it we were willing to tidy up ourselves at the end of the night.

Ms_Chocaholic

So you paid for the hire of the hall plus the £80 cleaning fee. You also put down a £400 deposit.

You left the hall at midnight and now they want to retain £228 of the £400 deposit in addition to the £80 cleaning fee.

Is that correct?

I'd send them another email and say if it's not returned by 7 days then you will pursue the small claims court action if that's the case.

agrinnall

Jed_Exodus wrote: »

They've come back pleading poverty as they're a registered charity.

Well that's not true, because if they don't return your full deposit they'll be £228 bettor off than they should be. Do as Ms Chocaholic says, and if they force you to go to small claims I'd consider making a complaint to the Charity Commission.

https://www.gov.uk/complain-about-charity

seashore22

Not excusing the hall at all, but do you think there has been some misunderstanding about what cleaning actually means? Did they give clear guidelines about what you needed to do and what the clean up included? Did they possibly think that you would be stacking plates and clearing tables? I'm just wondering if the person who offered this service was a bit naive about how much mess there is after a party.

I might be the wrong person to ask really because I'm the type who would clean before the cleaner came and a cleaning service would definitely be wasted on me.

Jed_Exodus

seashore22 wrote: »

Not excusing the hall at all, but do you think there has been some misunderstanding about what cleaning actually means? Did they give clear guidelines about what you needed to do and what the clean up included? Did they possibly think that you would be stacking plates and clearing tables? I'm just wondering if the person who offered this service was a bit naive about how much mess there is after a party.

I might be the wrong person to ask really because I'm the type who would clean before the cleaner came and a cleaning service would definitely be wasted on me.

Thanks for the response so far, we were categorically told in an email that we just had to leave at midnight and not worry. We did in fact tidy up a bit and have also been charged £48, which we accepted, for overstaying. This was due to the fact we were tidying up.

Jed_Exodus

Ms_Chocaholic wrote: »

So you paid for the hire of the hall plus the £80 cleaning fee. You also put down a £400 deposit.

You left the hall at midnight and now they want to retain £228 of the £400 deposit in addition to the £80 cleaning fee.

Is that correct?

I'd send them another email and say if it's not returned by 7 days then you will pursue the small claims court action if that's the case.

Correct, I have already threatened them with small claims court and gave them two weeks which runs out a week on Sunday.

Ms_Chocaholic

Jed_Exodus wrote: »

Thanks for the response so far, we were categorically told in an email that we just had to leave at midnight and not worry. We did in fact tidy up a bit and have also been charged £48, which we accepted, for overstaying. This was due to the fact we were tidying up.

How much was the hall to hire for the evening (not including cleaning fee and deposit).

Jed_Exodus

Ms_Chocaholic wrote: »

How much was the hall to hire for the evening (not including cleaning fee and deposit).

Not sure as my wife dealt with it, believe it was around £170.

sheramber

agrinnall wrote: »

Well that's not true, because if they don't return your full deposit they'll be £228 bettor off than they should be. Do as Ms Chocaholic says, and if they force you to go to small claims I'd consider making a complaint to the Charity Commission.

https://www.gov.uk/complain-about-charity

they may have had to pay the cleaning service the £228.

Mojisola

Jed_Exodus wrote: »

We recently had a party on a Saturday night at our local Hall for my daughter's 16th birthday.

The terms and conditions contained all the usual about cleaning up and leaving tidy.

However we were then offered by the hall a "cleaning and clearing service" for £80.

Too good to be true it seems, they now want to retain £228 of our £400 deposit for cleaning the hall!

Just the £80 seems quite expensive - how many hours' cleaning would £228 pay for?

Jed_Exodus

sheramber wrote: »

they may have had to pay the cleaning service the £228.

There was no cleaning service, as I said it was done by the caretaker.