Wedding tent deposit refund following bad weather cancellation

FloydTheBarber

Hi all

We celebrated our wedding this weekend. The venue was quite small so we paid for an outdoor teepee to give us more room. We booked/paid for this through the venue itself, who use an external teepee hire company. We paid a 25% deposit to the venue earlier on in the year to secure the teepee/venue, and followed by the full amount later on in the year.

During this weekend, most of the country (UK) experienced bad weather/storms, which was forecasted for about a week. Despite the forecast the teepee company put up the tent earlier in the day, then immediately before the wedding visited the venue and declared that the tent was unsafe due to the weather and couldn't be used.

The venue say it's out of their hands and it's the decision of the teepe company. The teepee company are saying they will pay us 75% of the cost back, but not the 25% deposit. 25% is a huge amount to pay for us for something that was cancelled due to no fault of our own (closer to £1000 than £100). The venue tells us that the teepee hire terms and conditions are:

"If bad weather is forecast during the hire period rendering the setup dangerous or equipment unusable the company reserves the right to cancel the hire agreement with 75% of the total hire invoice refundable to the client."

The problem is we have never been shown these terms and conditions until after the event when we questioned them. In fact we've never even been told the name of the teepee hire company, either in writing or verbally - as far as we're concerned we have just been dealing with the venue. Had we seen these terms and conditions at the time of booking, we wouldn't have booked an outdoor structure in December if we knew there was a risk of losing so much money.

What are our rights? How could we agree to t&cs when we had no knowledge of their existence?

Thank you

user1977

Why did you think anybody else was bearing the risk of the weather being bad?

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

user1977 said:

Why did you think anybody else was bearing the risk of the weather being bad?

Isn't that the risk of running a teepee company in the UK?

A service was paid for and not supplied, I'm not sure a term allowing the company to cancel and retain any of an advanced payment would be deemed fair? 

I believe the trader can indeed have a term to not fulfil the contract in extreme weather (in order to prevent harm) but retaining the 25% is the problem, granted they put the thing up but that seems to be their mistake as the storm was well forecast.

FloydTheBarber

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

user1977 said:

Why did you think anybody else was bearing the risk of the weather being bad?

Isn't that the risk of running a teepee company in the UK?

A service was paid for and not supplied, I'm not sure a term allowing the company to cancel and retain any of an advanced payment would be deemed fair? 

I believe the trader can indeed have a term to not fulfil the contract in extreme weather (in order to prevent harm) but retaining the 25% is the problem, granted they put the thing up but that seems to be their mistake as the storm was well forecast.

Thanks, yes exactly that. We've no problem with the teepee not being used - if they are not allowing us to use it because it was windy, that's fair enough, we can't do anything about that.

It's them keeping the £900ish despite us not being notified of any such t&cs beforehand that says they would do that.

GrubbyGirl_2

Surely your contract is with the venue not the teepee company.  You paid the venue and had no direct relationship with the teepee company.  You should be looking at the T&Cs of the venue so what does that say about bad weather?

FloydTheBarber

GrubbyGirl_2 said:

Surely your contract is with the venue not the teepee company.  You paid the venue and had no direct relationship with the teepee company.  You should be looking at the T&Cs of the venue so what does that say about bad weather?

Thanks for the response. Just found the venue's terms, it says:

CANCELLATION
"Bookings may be cancelled up to 14 days after payent of a deposit. After the deposit is non-refundable. Outside structure deposits will be retained by the provider within their own terms and conditions and may incur full cost, please ask for more details."


So should we have asked for more details? Is it enough for them to say "ask us for more details" or do they need to explicitly provide us with the t&cs? I'm reading this section as us cancelling, not the provider cancelling.

HampshireH

FloydTheBarber said:

GrubbyGirl_2 said:

Surely your contract is with the venue not the teepee company.  You paid the venue and had no direct relationship with the teepee company.  You should be looking at the T&Cs of the venue so what does that say about bad weather?

Thanks for the response. Just found the venue's terms, it says:

CANCELLATION
"Bookings may be cancelled up to 14 days after payent of a deposit. After the deposit is non-refundable. Outside structure deposits will be retained by the provider within their own terms and conditions and may incur full cost, please ask for more details."


So should we have asked for more details? Is it enough for them to say "ask us for more details" or do they need to explicitly provide us with the t&cs? I'm reading this section as us cancelling, not the provider cancelling.

When you read and signed those terms and conditions you should have asked for those it referred to.

Yes of course it would be best practice for them to attach it but it does very clearly state you are to ask for more details.

What does the section about them cancelling say

Scenarios like this is what wedding insurance is for. Can you pursue that avenue

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

FloydTheBarber said:

GrubbyGirl_2 said:

Surely your contract is with the venue not the teepee company.  You paid the venue and had no direct relationship with the teepee company.  You should be looking at the T&Cs of the venue so what does that say about bad weather?

Thanks for the response. Just found the venue's terms, it says:

CANCELLATION
"Bookings may be cancelled up to 14 days after payent of a deposit. After the deposit is non-refundable. Outside structure deposits will be retained by the provider within their own terms and conditions and may incur full cost, please ask for more details."


So should we have asked for more details? Is it enough for them to say "ask us for more details" or do they need to explicitly provide us with the t&cs? I'm reading this section as us cancelling, not the provider cancelling.

You can’t be bound by terms with which the you have had no real opportunity of becoming acquainted with before the conclusion of the contract.

The question is whether the venue is acting as an agent for the teepee company, if they are I’d sent a letter before action to the teepee company stating service not supplied, refund due.

If the venue is not an agent sent the letter to them.

If you say to the venue you intend to claim the cost of the teepee deposit back via small claims and need to know if they were acting as an agent I think they will say yes, would be best to get that confirmed in writing and then send the letter.

Hopefully they would buckle, maybe if a small business they’ll dig their heels in on principle, perhaps worth running by CAB to see what they say.

HillStreetBlues

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

user1977 said:

Why did you think anybody else was bearing the risk of the weather being bad?

Isn't that the risk of running a teepee company in the UK?

A service was paid for and not supplied, I'm not sure a term allowing the company to cancel and retain any of an advanced payment would be deemed fair? 

I believe the trader can indeed have a term to not fulfil the contract in extreme weather (in order to prevent harm) but retaining the 25% is the problem, granted they put the thing up but that seems to be their mistake as the storm was well forecast.

Correct, that's what a company's insurance is for to cover loss in this situation.
It's the teepee company that has breached the contract for not being able to supply a safe teepee and for them to argue "force majeure" caused that breach.

Undervalued

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

user1977 said:

Why did you think anybody else was bearing the risk of the weather being bad?

Isn't that the risk of running a teepee company in the UK?

A service was paid for and not supplied, I'm not sure a term allowing the company to cancel and retain any of an advanced payment would be deemed fair? 

I believe the trader can indeed have a term to not fulfil the contract in extreme weather (in order to prevent harm) but retaining the 25% is the problem, granted they put the thing up but that seems to be their mistake as the storm was well forecast.

Or it shows that the company made every effort to supply the service including putting the tent up, when it was unlikely to be possible to use it, just in case the forecast was wrong.

You can spin this either way!

It would be interesting to see the full terms and conditions and also to know if they are normal for this type of service? Even if the terms about the deposit are valid, the firm would not have cancelled lightly as they have done most or all of the work for 25% of their normal charge.

I can certainly think on some other weather dependent business to business contracts where the risk of bad weather is shared and insurance advised and / or offered. I appreciate that this is, presumably, a consumer contract and not B to B.

Until recently it was normal to sell tickets for outdoor sporting events, air shows etc, which were not refundable if bad weather prevented play. Some, not all, now have limited "insurance" built in. For example I think you get a refund at Wimbledon tickets if there is less than two hours play (out of a possible 8 or 9 hours on a decent day). 

OP are you sure you didn't receive any paperwork that said, for example, see our full terms and conditions on our website? Why would you pay a deposit without details of the full terms?

DullGreyGuy

First of all need to determine the contractual relationships, did you contract with the venue and they subcontracted with the hire company or did you contract with both with the venue acting as your agent for the tent? 

Secondly, need to check the force majeure clause in one or both of the contracts depending on the above, this is typically a hold harmless clause for matters outside of each others control (eg bad weather, war, riot, pandemic etc)

Finally would really need to dig into the conversations that were had on the day and how it played out that the tent was erected despite the poor weather forecast. Did you or the venue insist that they put it up in case the weather wasnt as bad as predicted etc?