Cancellation charges

Mnorthing

Hi, we signed my daughter up to an Internet school in June 2020 the contract had a auto renual clause so it rolled into a new year in June 21. We decided to pull her out. As it really was not working for her. They now want paying for the full year even though we won't get the teaching. Contract states this will be the case but can this be enforced or could it be an unfair contact clause?

JJ_Egan

Internet school   then where are they based ??

Mnorthing

UK based but all teaching was online

Alderbank

You say it rolled over in June.
Did you get a letter or email beforehand reminding you it was due to renew shortly?

Mnorthing

Yes, but at that stage we still wanted it. We only really concluded it was not working for her recently.

Jenni_D

Then you're bound by the T&Cs of the contract ... what specifically do they say about cancellation? (Given that this is a "school" then it is unlikely that they'll be able to fill the space part-way through the academic year, so it'll be difficult for them to mitigate their losses).

Mnorthing

T&C's clearly state if you cancel after June the you are financially committed to pay for full year.

user1977

Sounds reasonable to me (and pretty commonplace in my experience), if you're trying to "cancel" at a point where they're unlikely to be getting replacement students.

Alderbank

Mnorthing, it looks like you can't now cancel. That's fair enough if you just decide for instance that you have got what you wanted from the course and it's time for your daughter to move on.

However you say that 'it really was not working for her.' Is that because the tuition was not of the standard claimed or in some other way was not what you had been led to believe? If so you might have grounds for claiming a partial or even a full refund.

Can you expand on why you are now so disappointed that you want to withdraw?

mattyprice4004

Lots of things are contracted for a year and they're not unfair - my gym membership is, and it's clear I can't cancel mid-year and receive a refund. 

If you sign up for a year, you pay for a year I'm afraid (if that's what the T&Cs say) 

Mnorthing

Teaching standard was reasonable. So it looks like I'm stuffed.

Only minor point is that after I asked for her to be withdrawn they revoked the logins. So now I'm paying for something I don't have access to. Although they did say if I wanted it switched back on I could ask. So probably not an angle I can reasonably use.