Small Claims for Wedding services not received

Philip_Jackman

All the way back in December 2021 my daughter and her now husband was due to get married. Unfortunately due to them both testing positive for Covid, and due to the rules enforce at the time, the wedding could not go ahead as planned as they both had to self isolate. They tried to reschedule the planned church wedding and reception, but could not get the church and reception venue to agree on a date, so they opted to cancel the church wedding and settle for a simpler registry office wedding in a different city. The original wedding was due to be held in Maldon, Essex, and the registry office wedding was held in York.
Not as the Father of the bride I paid for several services for this wedding. Two of those services were for the hair and makeup for the bride, bridesmaids and brides mother, and the other was for the flowers for the church service and reception venue including button holes and bouquets. Due to the replanning after the cancellation due to the Bride and Groom contracting Covid I tried to reclaim the money paid out to the suppliers of the flowers and hair and makeup services. The lady providing the hair and makeup offered me a 32% refund, and the florist offered me a 50% refund, As you can imagine neither of these service were cheap. I was unhappy with the offer so I took out a small claim against these providers. One of these claims, Hair and Makeup services, has just been heard in the district court at Basildon. The district judge passed judgement that my claim should be dismissed as I did not have a contract with the provider of the hair and makeup services even though it was acknowledge that I paid for these services directly via bank transfer from my bank account to the stylists bank account. The judge ruled that I had paid on behalf of my daughter and therefore I had no claim to a refund for the services not being provided. I subsequently appealed this decision on the grounds that under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 I was by definition the consumer and therefore had rights under that act of parliament. The appeal was dismissed because in the option of the court I had paid for the services on behalf of my daughter and therefore I had no part in the contract. 
The district court hearing for my claim for a refund from the florist is due to be heard in August this year. On the basis of the above judgement am I wasting my time and should I just right off the £1000 for hair and makeup services I paid and the £2000 I [paid directly to the florist?

Browntoa

I'd sadly write it off

DullGreyGuy

On what grounds do you think you are even due a refund? Did the contract have a cancellation period? Covid didnt create an automatic right of cancellation and presumably this is a very short notice cancellation where it is unlikely they'd have been able to resell the flowers to another wedding.

I'd say the 50% refund was already generous and you are just throwing money away being litigious 

GrubbyGirl_2

If the contracts are with your daughter why doesn't she sue them? she can then refund you if she wins

Aylesbury_Duck

Yes, I'd write it off.  The court was correct in the first case.

The other thing to consider is how much you claimed.  You haven't given details of timescales, but I assume the cancellation was very short notice, given it was covid-related.  In those circumstances, you wouldn't be entitled to full refunds anyway.  The suppliers probably couldn't have secured replacement orders at short notice, so would have been able to charge an amount to cover their lost business.  Their offers of 32% and 50% refunds were probably fair in the circumstances, and rejecting them cost you the chance to receive £1,320 from the suppliers and you've incurred two lots of court fees.

It's good guidance for others in wedding planning mode, though.  Give your children the money to buy the services or items, rather than being the buyer yourself, and make sure they take out wedding insurance.

Philip_Jackman

DullGreyGuy said:

On what grounds do you think you are even due a refund? Did the contract have a cancellation period? Covid didnt create an automatic right of cancellation and presumably this is a very short notice cancellation where it is unlikely they'd have been able to resell the flowers to another wedding.

I'd say the 50% refund was already generous and you are just throwing money away being litigious 

Hi,
Just to be clear with regard to the flowers, the florist acknowledge at the time of cancellation that she had been able to cancel the flowers order from her supplier without incurring any costs herself.

Philip_Jackman

Aylesbury_Duck said:

Yes, I'd write it off.  The court was correct in the first case.

  The suppliers probably couldn't have secured replacement orders at short notice, so would have been able to charge an amount to cover their lost business.  Their offers of 32% and 50% refunds were probably fair in the circumstances, and rejecting them cost you the chance to receive £1,320 from the suppliers and you've incurred two lots of court fees.

It's good guidance for others in wedding planning mode, though.  Give your children the money to buy the services or items, rather than being the buyer yourself, and make sure they take out wedding insurance.

Hi,
Just to be clear with regard to the flowers, the florist acknowledge at the time of cancellation that she had been able to cancel the flowers order from her supplier without incurring any costs herself.

Philip_Jackman

GrubbyGirl_2 said:

If the contracts are with your daughter why doesn't she sue them? she can then refund you if she wins

Initially, as the purchaser I thought I had some legal rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015. It would appear that paying for something does not give you any rights in law. Yes I can ask my daughter to pursue this through another small claims, but all the suppliers have to claim is that my daughter did not pay for the services as there is not paper trail to show that she paid. The receipt for payment is in my name.

Aylesbury_Duck

Philip_Jackman said:

Aylesbury_Duck said:

Yes, I'd write it off.  The court was correct in the first case.

  The suppliers probably couldn't have secured replacement orders at short notice, so would have been able to charge an amount to cover their lost business.  Their offers of 32% and 50% refunds were probably fair in the circumstances, and rejecting them cost you the chance to receive £1,320 from the suppliers and you've incurred two lots of court fees.

It's good guidance for others in wedding planning mode, though.  Give your children the money to buy the services or items, rather than being the buyer yourself, and make sure they take out wedding insurance.

Hi,
Just to be clear with regard to the flowers, the florist acknowledge at the time of cancellation that she had been able to cancel the flowers order from her supplier without incurring any costs herself.

OK, but crucially, she lost the opportunity to earn a profit on your booking. She offered you £1,000 back, which was half of the order cost.  It's reasonable to assume that the remaining £1,000 might have been her margin on the service.  The cancellation cost her money, however you consider it.  Unless she secured another equivalent order at a few days' notice, which would seem unlikely.

Aylesbury_Duck

Philip_Jackman said:

GrubbyGirl_2 said:

If the contracts are with your daughter why doesn't she sue them? she can then refund you if she wins

Initially, as the purchaser I thought I had some legal rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015. It would appear that paying for something does not give you any rights in law. Yes I can ask my daughter to pursue this through another small claims, but all the suppliers have to claim is that my daughter did not pay for the services as there is not paper trail to show that she paid. The receipt for payment is in my name.

Don't let your daughter waste more money on court cases.  As has been explained, there is no entitlement to the full £3,000 from the two suppliers because of the short notice cancellation.  The retailers would simply tell the court that they offered reasonable sums in the circumstances, and those were rejected.

DullGreyGuy

Philip_Jackman said:

DullGreyGuy said:

On what grounds do you think you are even due a refund? Did the contract have a cancellation period? Covid didnt create an automatic right of cancellation and presumably this is a very short notice cancellation where it is unlikely they'd have been able to resell the flowers to another wedding.

I'd say the 50% refund was already generous and you are just throwing money away being litigious 

Hi,
Just to be clear with regard to the flowers, the florist acknowledge at the time of cancellation that she had been able to cancel the flowers order from her supplier without incurring any costs herself.

They can claim for loss of profit too not just wasted supplies, unless they managed to get another equivalent sized job to plug the gap. You dont say exactly how late the cancellation was but I'm imagining it being under a week and not many people start shopping for their wedding flowers under a week before the ceremony