paid for our wedding and the venue has closed

pauline1972

was hoping someone may have some advice
We were due to get married May 2020, our wedding was paid in full to the hotel. Due to covid we have had to postpone 3 times, the Hotel has been closed since the second lockdown and has not reopened. The owners have been really bad with communication, not replying to emails and now their website has been taken down and also their facebook page. The phone line is dead. we have no line of communication apart from email and they are ignoring them. We are due to get married sept 2021 and the Hotel is derelict, its been broken into twice, via a phone call from the owner we were assured the works had started on the repairs, no works have been carried out it is still boarded up in some parts. They have sacked all the staff with no redundancy payment, so im guessing the hotel is definitely not going to open.
they were supposed to contact me 4 months before the wedding to arrange details, this date has come and gone with no contact. I have tried to make a claim through charge back with my debit card but it is over 504 days even though the cancellations were out of our control with covid. I paid the initial deposit on credit card, they say that we can not claim until the company is showing in administration. At the moment it is still showing as an active business. There are at least 15 couples that I know of that are having the same problem. I have rang citizens advice and trading standards. Im not sure where I can go from here?

macman

The company does not have to be administration for you to make an S75 claim: you are covered for the full value under S75 even though you only used your CC for the deposit. I suggest you speak to your CC provider again and tell them that you have made repeated efforts to communicate with them without success.  Make sure you have written evidence of your request for a return of your payment.
The other route is an LBA and then small claims process against the company or individual that you contracted to, but the CC S75 way is infinitely better, as the company may have no assets.
Forget chargeback, that only runs for 120 days from the original scheduled date of the reception.
PS: you'd do better posting this on the coronavirus support board.

powerspowers

No advice, just wanted to send some support. Weddings are so difficult at the moment 😞 

GrumpyDil

As above use S75 but you frustratingly you may have to wait til Sept as that's the point at which the hotel can be shown to have failed to perform the contract.