Charged a cancellation fee but no confirmed booking

MakeDanSure

Hi,

We have recently moved house, and part of our old tenancy agreement required us to have the property professionally cleaned.
We approached a company by email about this service. They responded to say that they had availability and the cost of the service. We told them that any time was fine, and they said they would book us in.
However, we never received a confirmed time or anything you might consider a "booking confirmation", and so as far as we were aware no booking had actually been made. As such we booked another company.
On Friday, at around 8am, we received an email to say that the cleaners were on their way. We didn't pick this up until a few hours later, and besides as it was an end of tenancy clean we had moved out.
The company have now sent us an invoice for £50 for a cancellation fee. Their website makes no mention of this (no T&Cs anywhere at all) and it was never mentioned in their emails.

Can they charge us this if they didn't tell us up front, and didn't really confirm our booking?

Thanks!

custardy

MakeDanSure wrote: »

Hi,

We have recently moved house, and part of our old tenancy agreement required us to have the property professionally cleaned.
We approached a company by email about this service. They responded to say that they had availability and the cost of the service. We told them that any time was fine, and they said they would book us in.
However, we never received a confirmed time or anything you might consider a "booking confirmation", and so as far as we were aware no booking had actually been made. As such we booked another company.
On Friday, at around 8am, we received an email to say that the cleaners were on their way. We didn't pick this up until a few hours later, and besides as it was an end of tenancy clean we had moved out.
The company have now sent us an invoice for £50 for a cancellation fee. Their website makes no mention of this (no T&Cs anywhere at all) and it was never mentioned in their emails.

Can they charge us this if they didn't tell us up front, and didn't really confirm our booking?

Thanks!

did you give them a day?

MakeDanSure

We did give them a day, yes.

peter_the_piper

""They responded to say that they had availability and the cost of the service. We told them that any time was fine, and they said they would book us in.""

You asked for a booking, they responded, you confirmed by saying anytime was fine. IMHO a verbal contract was made. I'm not surprised a cancellation fee was charged as you did not contact them to say sorry, not needed.

custardy

So you said anytime on that day.
They turned up at a time on that day.

unholyangel

Consumer Contract Regulations - you have the right to cancel within 14 days providing they gave you the necessary information - and I'm guessing they didn't or you wouldn't be here asking. If they didn't give you the information then the cancellation period is 14 days (starting the day after you receive the info) from when they provide the info, up to a maximum of 1 year & 14 days.

They also shouldn't have provided the service within the cancellation period unless you made an express request.

36.!!!8212;(1) The trader must not begin the supply of a service before the end of the cancellation period provided for in regulation 30(1) unless the consumer!!!8212;

(a)has made an express request, and
(b)in the case of an off-premises contract, has made the request on a durable medium.

ETA: forgot this part

(6) The consumer bears no cost for supply of the service, in full or in part, in the cancellation period, if!!!8212;

(a)the trader has failed to provide the consumer with the information on the right to cancel required by paragraph (l) of Schedule 2, or the information on payment of that cost required by paragraph (n) of that Schedule, in accordance with Part 2, or
(b)the service is not supplied in response to a request in accordance with paragraph (1).