Wedding paid for but 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?

Jeremy535897

You could issue a LBA. See https://www.thesheriffsoffice.com/services/pre-legal-and-tracing/letter-before-action

Upsidedownandaround

I think you will just need to be patient at the moment as difficult as that sounds. 

Thankfully you will be covered by your credit card if they do go bust or fail to provide the wedding.

Until either of those happen there’s not much you can do.

If you think they are never going to open again then personally I wouldn’t bother with a letter before action. It wouldn’t be a good idea to spend money on trying to progress a court claim if no money is likely to be recoverable which appears to be the case from what you have said.

Jeremy535897

Upsidedownandaround said:

I think you will just need to be patient at the moment as difficult as that sounds. 

Thankfully you will be covered by your credit card if they do go bust or fail to provide the wedding.

Until either of those happen there’s not much you can do.

If you think they are never going to open again then personally I wouldn’t bother with a letter before action. It wouldn’t be a good idea to spend money on trying to progress a court claim if no money is likely to be recoverable which appears to be the case from what you have said.

Issuing a LBA might push them into sorting things out or going into administration, either of which would help OP.

Upsidedownandaround

Jeremy535897 said:

Upsidedownandaround said:

I think you will just need to be patient at the moment as difficult as that sounds. 

Thankfully you will be covered by your credit card if they do go bust or fail to provide the wedding.

Until either of those happen there’s not much you can do.

If you think they are never going to open again then personally I wouldn’t bother with a letter before action. It wouldn’t be a good idea to spend money on trying to progress a court claim if no money is likely to be recoverable which appears to be the case from what you have said.

Issuing a LBA might push them into sorting things out or going into administration, either of which would help OP.

If they have broken off communication with the OP then I think it’s unlikely sending a letter is going to change that. 

Their wedding is scheduled for September and at the moment they have quite a weak case for court action just now. 

They run the risk of the hotel saying at a later date they were the ones who tried to cancel the wedding 2 months before hand.

macman

If the supplier still fails to respond, now at  c. 2 months prior to the agreed rescheduled date, after saying that contact would resume at 4 months prior, then the best route is to seek an S75 claim on the basis that the contract has not and cannot be fulfilled.
This does not require the supplier to be in administration, so the CC card rep is talking nonsense.
Hopefully the OP has evidence of non-response at 4 months prior in order to take the S75 claim forward

Thrugelmir

Was the business a limited company?