Villa Plus refusing refund - could anyone please advise where we go next?

db3333

Sorry, this is long!!

We booked a villa last September to Majorca through Villa Plus. There weren't many reviews but when we spoke to VillaPlus before travelling we were told the villa has been stayed in by many happy guests.

We knew it was a traditional villa from the pictures and the garden and pool looked lovely on their website. We'd usually choose something more modern but this was the only one left with a heated pool that wasn't hugely overlooked.

We arrived quite late in the evening when it was dark so couldn't get a proper feel for the place that night but our first thoughts were that it smelt strongly of damp and was quite grim.

It's a old farmhouse with a very dated kitchen and everything was dark and dingy.

The villa was quite remote, with just a couple of tired looking houses/shacks nearby, and the first night I could hear someone crunching around under the bedroom window near our cars but it was too dark to see anyone as there was no outside lighting.

The next morning we discovered there was a makeshift gate leading from our property to the very run down property next door, which we later discovered was owned by the villa owners family so I believe someone had beend snooping.

We all slept really badly the first night as the beds were old and there was a field of cockerels next door.

The next morning the dogs from the garden next door barked incessantly with nobody even attempting to stop them. They then set off dogs from another neighbouring garden and this was the soundtrack of our morning.

In the cold light of day we began to realise how bad the accomodation was and that it was far from what we were expecting when we booked.

We then had a proper look around the villa and discovered the following;

The extra pillow I had grabbed from the wardrobe in the night had a large yellow stain on it.

my young son was covered in bed bug bites.

There was a large stain from something filthy splashed up the bedroom wall between the twin beds.

The lamp blew a bulb when I switched it on.

The air con didn't work properly.

The smell of damp mould was becoming stronger the longer we were there.

The tiles were coming away from the bathroom wall in several places.

The bidet didn't work.

The bathroom window was louvred and didn't close properly.

The shower curtain in this bathroom was covered in black and pink mould and would stick to your skin when showering as the bath was narrow.

The shower head was quite low down so my husband couldnt use it without squatting.

Everything (quite literally) in the kitchen cupboards needed washing as it was either filthy or greasy.

One fridge freezer was rusty around the edges.

The bracket that holds the oven shelf in place was broken.

There was nowhere to store our non-refridgerated food other than a table and worktops.

The sink area was stained and the kitchen net curtains were filthy.

The sofas in the lounge were filthy and stained but just had throws covering them.

Our clothes already smelt damp after one night in the wardrobe.

Our feet were stained black when we went to bed the first night after just a couple of hours walking barefoot on the floor.

The garden furniture was surrounded by mosquitos so we were bitten loads.

The BBQ was in such a digusting and rusty state, it was not usable. The same for the BBQ tools.

The childrens plahouse and pool table were old and stained.

The water in the pool smelled stagnant.

The paving slabs around the back of the house near the ping-pong table were cracked and broken in multiple places.

The sunbeds were old and stained.

The outdoor loo had a poo left in it.

The washing machine was in the garden at the back of the house and didn't look fit to use either.

We contacted Villaplus immediately and they sent a rep round. She tried fobbing us off about the issues initially. She then offered to buy a new shower curtain and get the cleaning team back in.

She offered to bleach the walls of the house to get rid of the mould smell!!

We said the house did not match what we booked and paid over £3k for and we would like moving to another property as we couldn't stay here.

She went back to the office then called and said the only other property they had was available a week later and was much smaller and completely overlooked by an 8 storey hotel next door.

We told her we couldn't stay in these conditions for another week so we eventually found and paid for another villa with a different company that was available the next day.

The next morning, a woman turned up at the gate. She let herself in and said she was the owners daughter-in-law and had been told we had left by VillaPlus, so she was there with family and friends to use the pool.

She lived in the house next door, which explains why there was an adjoining gate to the property.

We left that morning and within ten minutes, the daughter-in-law and her family were in the pool, along with their dog!

We'd purposely gone back and pretended we'd left something and took several photos of them in the garden and pool.

We have taken all this, along with multiple photos to VillaPlus and asked for a full refund.

The villa was not in  fit state to be rented out and did not match what we booked and paid for.

They also broke the contract by allowing the owners to come in and use the property while we were paying for it.

They have offered us £700 which we declined.

ABTA are as helpful as a chocolate kettle and have declined to step in.

Could someone please advise where we go next?

We paid by credit card but it was paid up in June as we travelled in September.

We're now over £4k out of pocket after paying for the new villa.

born_again

So well out of time for a chargeback.
Who did you pay for the Villa?
Given the mention of owners & VillaPlus (not owners)

elsien

I’m not sure you’ve got much of a complaint about people using the pool after you have made it very clear that you had vacated the property. 

Aylesbury_Duck

Need some help with the numbers here, because I'm struggling to understand how much any claim would be.

The first villa was "over £3k" for eight days?  You mention not being able to stay another week after the first day.

You stayed two nights in the end and were offered £700.  For what?  A discount on the whole booking if you stayed the whole eight days, or a partial refund for leaving after two days?

How much was the second villa if you're out of pocket by £4k?  That would make it a few hundred pounds (over £3k spent on the first villa).  

Did you have any bed bug problems subsequently?  They're usually a devil to get rid of once they're in clothing.

This all sounds like an insurance job to me.  What has your insurance said about it all?

Aylesbury_Duck

elsien said:

I’m not sure you’ve got much of a complaint about people using the pool after you have made it very clear that you had vacated the property. 

I didn't get that bit, either.  Why go back to take photos of people using the pool?  Very odd behaviour, and not the gotcha OP seems to think it is, given they'd left.

It sounds like a horrible experience  but there's a whole lot of irrelevant description of problems whereas to give proper advice, we need facts and figures.

What are the actual sums involved?
How many days was this booked for?
Who did OP pay and who is the contract with?
What was the £700 offer for, and from whom?
What did their insurer say?

ian16527

Aylesbury_Duck said:

elsien said:

I’m not sure you’ve got much of a complaint about people using the pool after you have made it very clear that you had vacated the property. 

I didn't get that bit, either.  Why go back to take photos of people using the pool?  Very odd behaviour, and not the gotcha OP seems to think it is, given they'd left.

It sounds like a horrible experience  but there's a whole lot of irrelevant description of problems whereas to give proper advice, we need facts and figures.

What are the actual sums involved?
How many days was this booked for?
Who did OP pay and who is the contract with?
What was the £700 offer for, and from whom?
What did their insurer say?

As the OP had paid for the villa for that time period, maybe they thought they should have a right to sole access of the facilities even though they had sought other accommodation.

The photographic evidence may prove that they hadn't sole access so maybe a bargaining point for refund along with all the other problems

Aylesbury_Duck

ian16527 said:

Aylesbury_Duck said:

elsien said:

I’m not sure you’ve got much of a complaint about people using the pool after you have made it very clear that you had vacated the property. 

I didn't get that bit, either.  Why go back to take photos of people using the pool?  Very odd behaviour, and not the gotcha OP seems to think it is, given they'd left.

It sounds like a horrible experience  but there's a whole lot of irrelevant description of problems whereas to give proper advice, we need facts and figures.

What are the actual sums involved?
How many days was this booked for?
Who did OP pay and who is the contract with?
What was the £700 offer for, and from whom?
What did their insurer say?

As the OP had paid for the villa for that time period, maybe they thought they should have a right to sole access of the facilities even though they had sought other accommodation.

The photographic evidence may prove that they hadn't sole access so maybe a bargaining point for refund along with all the other problems

Possibly, but that's not how I interpreted this bit:

We left that morning and within ten minutes, the daughter-in-law and her family were in the pool, along with their dog!

We'd purposely gone back and pretended we'd left something and took several photos of them in the garden and pool!

As I understood it, they'd told the Villaplus rep they were leaving, did leave, then snuck back to take photos of people in the pool.  They'd already relinquished any 'sole access' they were entitled to.

born_again

Did the hire of the villa give sole access to the pool?

db3333

Hi,

Thanks for your replies.

We paid VillaPlus around £3200 for 2 weeks at this property, flights were bought separately.

I'm not sure where someone got 8 days from?

We arrived Friday night. 

Saturday morning the rep came round and said even if we left, the villa would be ours for the whole 2 weeks because we had paid for it and so were under contract.

The only alternative she could offer us was occupied until the following week and wasn't suitable.

We then booked another villa with a different company that same day costing over £4k as it was the only decent one available at short notice.

This wasn't ready to move into until Sunday so we left the first villa Sunday morning. We were at the first villa for less than 40 hours.

Sunday morning before we left, the owners family turned up, saying VillaPlus had notified them we had left.

My father-in-law who (was with us) knows a little about contracts so this is why we went back ten minutes after leaving, to obtain proof they were now using the villa while still charging us for sole use, hence breaking the terms of the contract.

We opened a formal complaint with VillaPlus when we got home and they offered us £700 as a partial refund, claiming all those issues were personal preference.

db3333

born_again said:

Did the hire of the villa give sole access to the pool?

Yes it did. It was a self contained detached willa with quite a large garden and private pool.

We took photos because the rep had insisted we our contract was for the 2 weeks and it was solely our for the 2 weeks even if we left.

db3333

Sorry for the typos! She was very clear it was ours for the 2 weeks, even if we decided to leave. She told us several times that nobody else would be using it.