Taking wedding venue to court

jacqui2020

My fiancé and I were due to be married on 10 May, 2020. Obviously that was scuppered by Coronavirus restrictions at the time.

I am an Australian citizen (my fiancé is British), and so was in the country on a 6-month "fiancee visa" to facilitate the wedding. The Home Office have extended my visa until 31 August, but I must be married by that date, or else leave. We have therefore scrambled to arrange a simple ceremony at our local registry office before that date.

I do not wish to have a wedding "party" at a later date. Although our wedding will be small and simple, it is still our wedding.

By fact of law, our booking with the original venue - Great Fosters Hotel in Surrey - is a Frustrated Contract. They, however, insist that we are required to reschedule and refuse to refund our money. There is no clause in our contract relating to a requirement to reschedule. The only clause which may apply states "The Hotel may cancel the event if the Hotel is closed due to circumstances outside its control. In the event of cancellation by the Hotel, the Hotel will refund all pre-payments made by the Client in full and shall have no further liability to the Client."

To my mind, this means they are in clear breach of law in refusing a refund. I launched action through the Small Claims Tribunal, but the venue is fighting the claim and insisting we have no right to our money back. The case has been escalated to the local County Court. Court fees are an expense I can ill afford (as a contractor in tourism who has no work due to the pandemic and is not eligible for any government assistance as a foreign citizen), but I don't know if I have any other options.

If anyone has a legal opinion on this matter, or any other advice or assistance to offer, it would be greatly appreciated. 

Grumpy_chap

Hello Jacqui, congratulations on your wedding, even though the day was not the one you want, hopefully your new spouse will be perfect and you have many happy years together.

What does the venue say about the clause you quoted?  Ordinarily that clause is heavily in favour of the hotel, so odd that they are trying to dodge it.

Great Fosters is a lovely venue.

Jeremy535897

I'm not sure how much help it will be, but see:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cma-to-investigate-concerns-about-cancellation-policies-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic/the-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic-consumer-contracts-cancellation-and-refunds

jacqui2020

Grumpy_chap said:

Hello Jacqui, congratulations on your wedding, even though the day was not the one you want, hopefully your new spouse will be perfect and you have many happy years together.

What does the venue say about the clause you quoted?  Ordinarily that clause is heavily in favour of the hotel, so odd that they are trying to dodge it.

Great Fosters is a lovely venue.

Thank you for responding, and for your well wishes!

Believe it or not, when I highlighted that clause back to them, they said they had not cancelled my event! They then sent back the following clause

‘“Should the Hotel for reasons beyond its control, need to make any amendments to your booking, we reserve the right to offer an alternative choice of facilities.”

and tried to argue that in this instance, “alternative choice of facilities” meant offering a different date. This is ludicrous of course, but it seems to form the basis of their argument. 

I’m shocked they’ve let it go this far. Great Fosters is indeed a beautiful venue, but their customer care has been nothing short of appalling. They’ve taken an incredibly distressing set of circumstances and made it significantly worse. I wouldn’t trust them to host a bbq, let alone an important life event.

I just do not understand the legal basis for their retention of our money. Seems illegal to me!

unholyangel

jacqui2020 said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Hello Jacqui, congratulations on your wedding, even though the day was not the one you want, hopefully your new spouse will be perfect and you have many happy years together.

What does the venue say about the clause you quoted?  Ordinarily that clause is heavily in favour of the hotel, so odd that they are trying to dodge it.

Great Fosters is a lovely venue.

Thank you for responding, and for your well wishes!

Believe it or not, when I highlighted that clause back to them, they said they had not cancelled my event! They then sent back the following clause

‘“Should the Hotel for reasons beyond its control, need to make any amendments to your booking, we reserve the right to offer an alternative choice of facilities.”

and tried to argue that in this instance, “alternative choice of facilities” meant offering a different date. This is ludicrous of course, but it seems to form the basis of their argument. 

I’m shocked they’ve let it go this far. Great Fosters is indeed a beautiful venue, but their customer care has been nothing short of appalling. They’ve taken an incredibly distressing set of circumstances and made it significantly worse. I wouldn’t trust them to host a bbq, let alone an important life event.

I just do not understand the legal basis for their retention of our money. Seems illegal to me!

So if they didn't cancel it, what's their reason for not providing what was agreed on the agreed date? 

Just send them a letter before action. Or if you paid anything towards it on credit, try a section 75 claim with the creditor.

Thrugelmir

Did you seek legal advice before commencing action? 

k3lvc

Thrugelmir said:

Did you seek legal advice before commencing action? 

The venue certainly isn't a small, fly by night operation. It would certainly surprise me if they don't have their legal ducks in a row 

jacqui2020

Thrugelmir said:

Did you seek legal advice before commencing action? 

Only Citizens’ Advice and a family member who is almost finished a law degree. I can’t afford legal help.

jacqui2020

k3lvc said:

Thrugelmir said:

Did you seek legal advice before commencing action? 

The venue certainly isn't a small, fly by night operation. It would certainly surprise me if they don't have their legal ducks in a row 

That’s what worries me. But I cannot understand how they could successfully argue that this is not a clear case of a Frustrated Contract.

unholyangel

k3lvc said:

Thrugelmir said:

Did you seek legal advice before commencing action? 

The venue certainly isn't a small, fly by night operation. It would certainly surprise me if they don't have their legal ducks in a row 

Why would it surprise you? Nothing that the OP has told us indicates they have any reasonable legal basis to refuse a refund. 

Grumpy_chap

‘“Should the Hotel for reasons beyond its control, need to make any amendments to your booking, we reserve the right to offer an alternative choice of facilities.”

Is this clause in the original contract?  If not, it is entirely meaningless.

Great Fosters is indeed a beautiful venue, but their customer care has been nothing short of appalling.
And customer service has obviously not improved in exactly the last 15 years.

Can I confirm, did you cancel, or did Great Fosters cancel?  This might seem like semantics for a wedding in May, but exactly this comes up regularly on the coronavirus travel board.

This link might help, in addition to that posted by Jeremy.
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2020/04/watchdog-to-investigate-coronavirus-cancellation-policies-/amp/