Venue cancelation deposit rights

Chri5_80

Hi All

After some helpful advice, I'm just checking if I have any rights to claiming a room hire deposit back?

We booked a venue for March 2025, and it cost £500 to hire, which we now need to cancel due to unforeseen circumstances, we signed no paperwork, and received no T&C's, just and email from the venue hire, which stated  -In order to confirm this booking we will require the deposit of £500.00, non-refundable and non-transferable to be paid within a week, please use this secure payment link. 

Is that wording in the email enough to cover them, or the lack of signed documents and no sight of T&S in my favour?

Regards 

Undervalued

Chri5_80 said:

Hi All

After some helpful advice, I'm just checking if I have any rights to claiming a room hire deposit back?

We booked a venue for March 2025, and it cost £500 to hire, which we now need to cancel due to unforeseen circumstances, we signed no paperwork, and received no T&C's, just and email from the venue hire, which stated  -In order to confirm this booking we will require the deposit of £500.00, non-refundable and non-transferable to be paid within a week, please use this secure payment link. 

Is that wording in the email enough to cover them, or the lack of signed documents and no sight of T&S in my favour?

Regards 

The email was the T & Cs, or at least part of them, which you chose to accept by sending the requested deposit!

That said, a deposit cannot amount to a penalty. They have a duty to take reasonable steps to minimise their losses, probably by finding another customer for that day. If they do that then arguably they should only retain enough of your £500 to cover the reasonable admin costs. 

If however they can't resell the date, despite reasonable efforts, and their loss of profit is more than £500 they could potentially look to you for the extra!

A contract in English law does not have to be in writing, let alone signed, to be valid. Obviously if it is not it may well be harder to prove what was agreed but a contract was formed by offer and acceptance.

elsien

They sent you an email making it very clear that the deposit was nonrefundable. You accepted those terms by paying the deposit.

However, as above you could go back to ask what they are doing to mitigate the loss? 

Hoenir

Chri5_80 said:

Is that wording in the email enough to cover them

You accepted the terms when you parted with your money. Contracts aren't created to be changed on a whim. 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Hoenir said:

Chri5_80 said:

Is that wording in the email enough to cover them

You accepted the terms when you parted with your money. Contracts aren't created to be changed on a whim. 

Given non-refundable deposits are most likely to be viewed as unfair terms in consumer contracts perhaps it was...  

OP first post is basically correct, although if the cost was £500 and the deposit was £500 meaning you've paid in full there wouldn't be anything extra for them to ask for if they couldn't resell the date. Either way you should get something back but enforcing it might take some effort. 

Edited to add, OP your post could be read as if you haven't actually paid anything yet? If not then don't and see what they say, if they insist they are simply due £500 they are incorrect so pop back for more advice.

DullGreyGuy

Chri5_80 said:

Hi All

After some helpful advice, I'm just checking if I have any rights to claiming a room hire deposit back?

We booked a venue for March 2025, and it cost £500 to hire, which we now need to cancel due to unforeseen circumstances, we signed no paperwork, and received no T&C's, just and email from the venue hire, which stated  -In order to confirm this booking we will require the deposit of £500.00, non-refundable and non-transferable to be paid within a week, please use this secure payment link. 

Is that wording in the email enough to cover them, or the lack of signed documents and no sight of T&S in my favour?

You say it was a deposit but then say you paid in full? Or was the hire £5,000 and you paid a 10% deposit of £500 up front? 

You knew the deposit was non-returnable, non-transferable and so did have some terms. Contracts dont have to be signed to be enforceable. 

Traditionally courts disliked fixed costs for breach of contract and preferred for everything to be on an indemnity basis, ie they could only charge you what it actually costs them and so that will be heavily dependent on if they manage to get another booking for that date or not. The risk of this is that they spend £200 trying to resell it, showing people round etc and dont sell it so you owe them another £200. Certainly in B2B contracts the courts are getting more accepting that there is a benefit to all parties for a reasonable fix cost to be applied rather than indemnity but dont know how much thats trickled down into B2C setups (clearly has to some degree given the fixed cost fees for overdrafts, non-payment of credit cards etc which were deemed acceptable by the OFT)