Hen Weekend 9th July 2021Cancelled by Government Extension.

55HippyChick

My God-daughter's 3-night Hen Weekend for 26 Hens was booked for 9th July 2021, but is now cancelled by the Government extension to July 19th.

A large house was rented plus some individual services such as a private chef to cook dinner at the house on July 10th for 26 people. All the different deposits of the booking are being refunded in full except the private chef dinner party.
They have said that the deposit of £229.80 is not refundable as they have a "non refundable deposit" clause in their contract.
Is this legal, if the Government has directed the cancellation, and actually with "the rule of 6" indoors, they can't comply with the terms of the booking anyway ?

pbartlett

they can provide the chef so i suppose that is why they are not refunding you. If say the chef had fallen ill, then they would refund you as they could not then provide the service.

They are saying dinner's ready - not our fault you are not here to eat it.

55HippyChick

pbartlett said:

they can provide the chef so i suppose that is why they are not refunding you. If say the chef had fallen ill, then they would refund you as they could not then provide the service.

They are saying dinner's ready - not our fault you are not here to eat it.

 That is a point, except it would be a VERY short notice cancellation on their part.

They were given notice once the PM made the announcement regarding the extension until July 19th & they can't supply the service now anyway as it would be against the law.
A chef plus any assistants and waiter/waitress staff can't come to a house and cook & serve 26 people anyway under the rule of 6 for indoor parties.

JamoLew

55HippyChick said:

pbartlett said:

they can provide the chef so i suppose that is why they are not refunding you. If say the chef had fallen ill, then they would refund you as they could not then provide the service.

They are saying dinner's ready - not our fault you are not here to eat it.

 That is a point, except it would be a VERY short notice cancellation on their part.

They were given notice once the PM made the announcement regarding the extension until July 19th & they can't supply the service now anyway as it would be against the law.
A chef plus any assistants and waiter/waitress staff can't come to a house and cook & serve 26 people anyway under the rule of 6 for indoor parties.

They could if the 26 were from 2 households

Sandtree

55HippyChick said:
A chef plus any assistants and waiter/waitress staff can't come to a house and cook & serve 26 people anyway under the rule of 6 for indoor parties.

Have you not been in a pub or restaurant recently? Do you think they are only allowed 6 staff?

Rules exist for socialising, rules for people working are different… our office is allowing 240 people indoors at the moment (half normal capacity)

Secondly, the food could be served outside where the rules for socialising are 30 people

pinkshoes

55HippyChick said:

They were given notice once the PM made the announcement regarding the extension until July 19th & they can't supply the service now anyway as it would be against the law.

Only against the law if indoors surely? Can't you organise tables and chairs to eat outside at this country house? You can have up to 30 outdoors.

The bottom line is that the chef is still available for that evening to cook for 26. They do need to mitigate their losses though. Was the chef providing the food to be cooked? What is the £229.80 for? Have you asked for a break down? What would the full cost have been? 

Is it possible to arrange a plan B e.g. the food still gets cooked but you then freeze it in single portions to be eaten at a later date?!?! 

55HippyChick

Thanks for all your comments.

There is no "outside" anymore, the house rental venue has been cancelled.

It was a private house, not a pub nor an office, and so the socialising rule of 6 applies, (the Hen group are from many households)

The deposit of £229.80 is 25% of the total inc., VAT, the full amount is £776 + VAT

The chef was providing everything.

Sandtree

55HippyChick said:

There is no "outside" anymore, the house rental venue has been cancelled.

It was a private house, not a pub nor an office, and so the socialising rule of 6 applies, (the Hen group are from many households)

It doesn't matter the location, people who are formally working do not count towards the indoor socialising limits. You could have 30 outside and 10 waiting staff, chefs, pot washers etc in the house and be fine because the staff aren't socialising.

What reason are you blaming the chef for the venue being cancelled? 

At the end of the day you wish to breach the contract and therefore are responsible for the private dining company's losses. If they are able to get a new booking that replaces yours then they'd need to refund your deposit less any marketing costs etc for securing it but you'd need to be fairly lucky that in these times they get another 26+ person booking in the next couple of weeks . If they don't their costs are on you... though clearly they can mitigate some of their losses if they were intending to use temps/zero hour contracts etc because the waiting staff will just lose the job for the day etc. This gets a bit complicated which is why most companies simply say its X% deposit thats non-refundable as an approximate of their losses for each late cancellation 

Jenni_D

£229.80 / 26 is ~£8.40 each ...a couple of drinks if you were out on the town which you wouldn't even quibble about.

Retaining the whole deposit is somewhat arbitrary though ... you could require them to justify the amount to be retained - but the amount it may be reduced by may not be worth the effort.

mattyprice4004

Sounds fair enough to me - I understand you're trying to minimise your losses but the replies you have are accurate.
The configuration of the house is not relevant, and neither is the household issue - the chef is available and willing to cook, and the circumstances you have created on your side mean you can't host them.
That's your loss to bear, sorry. 

sheramber

The chef may have already incurred some expenses in preparation for the event.

He may have turned down another booking for that date.

What does the contract, which you  agreed to say about cancellation?

Is £8.40 each worth all the hassle?