Section 75 claim help - Sykes cottages - eligibility?

waitpatiently

Hi,
I'm really stressed. 

We returned from a week long cottage stay booked via Sykes Cottages where the fridge freezer was broken and we had no fridge freezer as described for the full week, and still when we left the property. We were also impacted the entire week by phone calls / engineer visits/ needing to leave the property to use another building's fridge (our suggestion, not Sykes) / needing to vacate property for engineer visits to remove old fridge / new fridge was not fitted and left in the corridor of property when we returned from vacating to allow works / changing our food shop including reducing refrigerated items allergy friendly foods such as milk for our children (we were in a remote location and nearest supermarket 18 miles away)/ not having full access to keys to property to allow engineers in and an extremely stressful week and following days as a result.....

The only resolution at the time was an existing tiny mini fridge, capacity unsuitable for party of 5 guests. When we arrived, this was on the floor, so the property were aware of the broken main fridge freezer. We discovered the engineer was supposed to enter the property in the prior week but did not. We called on the first night to say the mini fridge was not suitable. At best, the mini fridge fit about 2 x 2pint milks in, some spread, and some cheese. We had to move raw meat between a vacant property's fridge and ours in sandwich bags as we couldn't fit a whole packet of meat in our property's mini fridge. It was objectively difficult and time consuming to live without a fridge when dining out was not an option financially nor nutritionally for guests with food allergies and mobility issues. We can quantify lost time and loss of value, and loss of enjoyment to try and reclaim directly from Sykes / owner 60% of the whole property rental fee. 

We had already messages Sykes during the holiday to say a full complaint would follow. However, before we submitted the full complaint when we got home, Sykes rushed in with a menial and insulting 5% goodwill gesture. We did not accept the small goodwill gesture and explained we would need to put a full complaint in as the value of the gesture did not equate to our losses. 

We gathered all the evidence to form a well evidenced complaint sent last Tuesday, and proceeded to chase Sykes as we have had no acknowledgment nor response. The latest response from Sykes was final refusal to cooperate and insisted the owner's first and final goodwill gesture wasn't even on the table, reducing any refund to zero (!). The message from Sykes was very vague and showed they had not read our complaint at all (referencing cleanliness as our complaint, which was never referenced anywhere) and have dismissed the case. It's almost like they have not read the complaint, have not really allowed us the right to fully complain (as we've still not had acknowledgment of the breach of the rental contract conditions by owner) , and actually by us complaining, they have withdrawn the gesture to offer absolutely no compensation at all - only told today that it was the owner's "first and final offer".

So online is unclear on whether I can get our holiday rental fee partially or fully refunded using Section 75 as Sykes is an agent, but I've asked Sykes for the owner's contact details but not sure I'll be successful in acquiring that to try and resolve directly with the owner.

Is a Section 75 likely to give us a good outcome or will it be rejected outright? We paid using credit card. Please can somebody help us - I'd really hate to go through small claims, but would love experience or views on similar stories ending more successfully with Sect 75 or chargeback before I fill my bank Sect 75 claim form in. Thank you.

Aylesbury_Duck

I'd expect your card company to ask for your quantified losses, and how they compare to the full amount paid.  Instinctively, expecting 60% of the entire cost as a refund for not having the use of a fridge sounds completely unreasonable, but given all the events you describe, 5% feels instinctively mean.  The fair figure is probably somewhere between the two, but percentages are meaningless without the absolute values, and in any case, if you have quantified losses, those should be pounds and pence, not a percentage figure.

Others with direct knowledge of how card companies handle claims like this will be along, but I would be surprised if the card provider simply paid out 60% of the cost on your say-so.

It's not unusual for an offer to be withdrawn once rejected.  They clearly don't want to get involved in a lengthy back-and-forth as you try to reconcile a 60% expectation with a 5% offer.

DullGreyGuy

waitpatiently said:
We can quantify lost time and loss of value, and loss of enjoyment to try and reclaim directly from Sykes / owner 60% of the whole property rental fee. 

Is Sykes the owner?

Looks like they're not on most the cottages at least in which case S75 will fail because you paid a third party (Sykes) and not directly to the Supplier (cottage owner) but S75 requires a direct relationship between Debtor, Creditor and Supplier

Grumpy_chap

The quantifiable loss might be very low.

The OP paid to hire a cottage.  One part of that, the fridge, was not available.  The loss might just be the hire cost of a fridge.  At work, we hire fridges for £1 per week+ VAT.

Anything above the quantifiable loss is a goodwill gesture.  Inconvenience does not have a value as such.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Grumpy_chap said:

Inconvenience does not have a value as such.

Loss of enjoyment is a valid reason to claim damages for a holiday  

That's not to suggest you would get much for a broken fridge but it's unclear whether the disruption of engineer visits  to remove the fridge was because OP was insistent on the problem being resolved or just the natural flow the owner went with. 

Sykes is like Booking.com, just a agent so any claim for breach of contract, loss of enjoyment, etc would have to be made against the accommodation owner unless Sykes has an additional policy covering dispute resolution and Sykes fail to adhere to it's conditions.  

saajan_12

Grumpy_chap said:

The quantifiable loss might be very low.

The OP paid to hire a cottage.  One part of that, the fridge, was not available.  The loss might just be the hire cost of a fridge.  At work, we hire fridges for £1 per week+ VAT.

Anything above the quantifiable loss is a goodwill gesture.  Inconvenience does not have a value as such.

That's possibly a little extreme, as a private person may not be able to get anything at that sort of price with the turnaround time and length of hire needed. 

However I do agree with the principle of calculating loss of use / enjoyment OR cost of alternative workaround, and going with whichever is LOWER. So while a £1 hire may have been beyond their means, could they have hired someone to move the fridge from the other property? Or buy a second mini fridge? Or buy a coolbox and ice? Or order takeaway + groceries on delivery more frequently? There's many options before ruining your holiday over it and then expectign that to be covered. 

waitpatiently

saajan_12 said:

Grumpy_chap said:

The quantifiable loss might be very low.

The OP paid to hire a cottage.  One part of that, the fridge, was not available.  The loss might just be the hire cost of a fridge.  At work, we hire fridges for £1 per week+ VAT.

Anything above the quantifiable loss is a goodwill gesture.  Inconvenience does not have a value as such.

That's possibly a little extreme, as a private person may not be able to get anything at that sort of price with the turnaround time and length of hire needed. 

However I do agree with the principle of calculating loss of use / enjoyment OR cost of alternative workaround, and going with whichever is LOWER. So while a £1 hire may have been beyond their means, could they have hired someone to move the fridge from the other property? Or buy a second mini fridge? Or buy a coolbox and ice? Or order takeaway + groceries on delivery more frequently? There's many options before ruining your holiday over it and then expectign that to be covered. 

Hi, thank for your reply   - sorry just to check what you mean, should I have been expected to buy a second mini fridge ? Or eat out for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day? I didn’t  have the right to remove a fridge out of somebody else’s property - it was also a first floor of an apartment and the apartment belonged to another owner that Sykes are agents for five minutes away. It may have taken us a week to get hold of one and we weren’t about to try to do that as our holiday week was passing by. We did our best with what we had by walking to the other building and did that about six times a day. It was upsetting as we’d saved up to go for a more expensive rental and hadn’t factored this extra inconvenience in when it should be a given to have a fridge freezer there. 

Also, we had been told on our first full day on Sunday we’d have a new fridge on Monday, which was delayed to Wednesday, then pushed to Friday. We believed they would get a new fridge in at the beginning of our stay so it would have been hasty for us to go purchase our own fridge for temporary use?

We had originally planned to cook on holiday like we normally do at home, as it helps with the cost and food allergies for my young children. There were five of us, so we would have needed more than a second mini fridge - these don’t hold very much at all.  The location we stayed at is very remote with the nearest supermarket 18 mile away, and we had booked a week’s worth of food in the supermarket delivery slot hours after arriving and could not cancel it and had to send lots of fridge (I.e. fresh) food back, and it’s not practical to get a shop in every two days - no phone signal so things like confirming the credit card transaction with the number they text to your phone (little things like this I would not have even considered) make it harder. We couldn’t just buy a cool box easily especially when we were expecting a new mini fridge ‘any day now’ and even if I had one, we cook a lot and wouldn’t store many of the essentials in just one or even two. We don’t ever buy alcohol or fridge snacks, just raw meat and fish, raw veg, fruit, lots of dairy free milk and regular milk, yoghurt. 

So should I ask Sykes for the goodwill gesture they’ve retracted or is it too late? 

Then if it’s only down to Section 75, which sounds shakey as Sykes is only an agent, how could I also effectively quantify loss of use/value and enjoyment as these are two (albeit subjective) criteria listed on the ABTA as accepted reasons for complaining? That would be helpful to understand.

I have added up the times spent in phone calls to us or from us trying to organise engineer visits or alternative solutions that ultimately were inadequate, or contacting Sykes to arrange an additional mini fridge (we probably needed four to have been fine) and in the end were delivered a mini freezer which spoiled our food as they told us it was a fridge. They made three visits in one day and an engineer visited twice. We had to vacate the property for a couple of hours on the last day for the engineer to remove the broken fridge and lug it out of the apartment , and were not told when he’d left so we had to hang around outside waiting until his van had gone so we could return to the property, cook and pack and get ready to leave the next day. The new fridge was not even fitted in the end.

We have two young children and it wasn’t safe to be around whilst he was working. So I’ve totalled up time associated with handling the broken fridge and the stress of the first night trying to get a solution in a place with poor phone signal and no internet which equates to about 12 hours (messages, phone calls, visits, walking around between buildings, compiling photos and complaints). That’s one day (daytime) of the holiday.

The engineer also barged in with his own set of keys without ringing a doorbell whilst we were in - it felt quite intrusive. We were asked to leave our keys in the key safe the whole time when he had his own set already to enter the property.And we had to deal with calls everyday from the owners agents - it felt like we never had any peace on the holiday from it and we were glad to be home, which I was sad to feel at the end of it all. 

I know it doesn’t sound like a big deal when there was no fridge but if you think about how often you rely on the fridge and visit it in a day, it’s more than you realise, especially when you have two young children. From a money saving and health point of view it was necessary to have a large enough fridge and definitely yes, £1 a day doesn’t come close to what the actual losses were.

Sorry for all the detail, I accept that 60% is high but to get nothing from this is shattering. 😞 Grateful for all the input as it can help me make a more compelling a Section 75 claim.

if it’s a small claims court, is this a very tricky route to go down? I don’t even have the owners details as they hide behind Sykes who have dismissed us.

waitpatiently

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Inconvenience does not have a value as such.

Loss of enjoyment is a valid reason to claim damages for a holiday  

That's not to suggest you would get much for a broken fridge but it's unclear whether the disruption of engineer visits  to remove the fridge was because OP was insistent on the problem being resolved or just the natural flow the owner went with. 

Sykes is like Booking.com, just a agent so any claim for breach of contract, loss of enjoyment, etc would have to be made against the accommodation owner unless Sykes has an additional policy covering dispute resolution and Sykes fail to adhere to it's conditions.  

Thank you - we called Sykes on day one as soon as we discovered our fridge freezer was not working. They already had on file that the engineer should have visited the Friday before we checked in (Saturday) to resolve but it wasn’t done. We were told by Sykes and hoped for a working fridge by Monday but for reasons given such as availability of engineer, new fridge on order, they never made it out to us with a new fridge until Friday and then didn’t fit it as the engineer couldn’t carry it up the stairs himself despite visiting the property once already and had already carried the old one down himself. That was our last full day, and we had waited all week by then. 

Sykes don’t seem to have allowed us to make a full complaint and haven’t read it. To me that feels like they’ve dismissed us before acknowledging the issue. Am I allowed to post their message on here to show if I hide some of the name?

I really appreciate everyone’s help. I feel so stuck and helpless.

waitpatiently

DullGreyGuy said:

waitpatiently said:
We can quantify lost time and loss of value, and loss of enjoyment to try and reclaim directly from Sykes / owner 60% of the whole property rental fee. 

Is Sykes the owner?

Looks like they're not on most the cottages at least in which case S75 will fail because you paid a third party (Sykes) and not directly to the Supplier (cottage owner) but S75 requires a direct relationship between Debtor, Creditor and Supplier

No Sykes don’t own the property. After reading this, in theory Sykes could give you a bomb site when you turn up, then say they’re not the owner, and dismiss you as you never had any leg to stand on to begin with? Or am I missing something, because Sykes haven’t even really allowed us any route to complain even when we’ve read through and applied their complaints procedure.

the booking conditions are here: https://www.northumbria-cottages.co.uk/terms/booking

it gets even stickier as it’s Sykes, then Northumbria Cottages, who then handle it on behalf of the owner so whilst we were there, NC handled things such as the engineer and speaking to the owner. We never spoke to the owner. We never dealt with Sykes apart from at the start to call about the discovery and only now to complain for some reason, despite NC dealing with the issues during the week.

This is the business model you need if you want to squash any hope of consumer rights

Alderbank

waitpatiently said:

DullGreyGuy said:

waitpatiently said:
We can quantify lost time and loss of value, and loss of enjoyment to try and reclaim directly from Sykes / owner 60% of the whole property rental fee. 

Is Sykes the owner?

Looks like they're not on most the cottages at least in which case S75 will fail because you paid a third party (Sykes) and not directly to the Supplier (cottage owner) but S75 requires a direct relationship between Debtor, Creditor and Supplier

No Sykes don’t own the property. After reading this, in theory Sykes could give you a bomb site when you turn up, then say they’re not the owner, and dismiss you as you never had any leg to stand on to begin with? Or am I missing something, because Sykes haven’t even really allowed us any route to complain even when we’ve read through and applied their complaints procedure.

the booking conditions are here: https://www.northumbria-cottages.co.uk/terms/booking

it gets even stickier as it’s Sykes, then Northumbria Cottages, who then handle it on behalf of the owner so whilst we were there, NC handled things such as the engineer and speaking to the owner. We never spoke to the owner. We never dealt with Sykes apart from at the start to call about the discovery and only now to complain for some reason, despite NC dealing with the issues during the week.

This is the business model you need if you want to squash any hope of consumer rights

Have you even read the T&Cs before making all these accusations?

The T&Cs are clear that you have a consumer contract with the owner and they list the contractual terms which the owner has committed to (8 AN OWNER'S RESPONSIBILITIES) and (17 OWNERS' LIABILITY).

Near the end:
19.2 Your legal rights: Nothing...affects your legal rights or any right you may have to bring legal proceedings against an Owner under a Rental Contract.

...so nothing at all 'squashing any hope of consumer rights'?

The owners knew the fridge was beyond use well before you arrived at the property so I would start my claim with:

8 AN OWNER'S RESPONSIBILITIES

An Owner will...provide an accurate, complete and up to date description of the Property, and as soon as reasonably possible; notifying you in writing of any changes to the description of the Property and/or Rental Services relating to your Booking which would make our descriptions of the Property inaccurate, incomplete or misleading;

so in my opinion they could and certainly should have emailed you warning that there was currently no working fridge or freezer in the property which is located 18 miles from the nearest source of fresh food.

However since it is so remote, they appear to have taken all reasonable steps to replace the fridge as soon as possible and the delays were entirely due to the engineer who was probably the only person available to do the job at that time in that location, so the delays were beyond their reasonable control. That will moderate their liability.

MobileSaver

waitpatiently said:

Sykes rushed in with a menial and insulting 5% goodwill gesture. ... I accept that 60% is high

As others have said, percentages aren't very helpful in this instance, roughly how much did you pay for the week in the cottage?