Music teacher refusing to refund lessons they can’t deliver

Impossibleuniquename

My daughter started violin lessons with a teacher during the final term of the last academic year. Lessons were on a Monday, then the teacher moved them to a Thursday. At the start of this academic year, she said she could no longer do Thursdays, so we moved back to Mondays, with an agreement via text for 3:45pm. 

We did one week, and then a few days after the lesson the teacher messaged to ask if we could do later on a Monday. I said we couldn’t, and asked where she had got to with coming into school - something she had said she would organise with the school, which would have made things easier.
 

She didn’t reply about coming into school, but suggested some other days/times, none of which we could do (most of these had already been discussed when we started lessons, so she knew we had limited availability).

On the Monday morning (day of next lesson) we then got a message from the teacher saying she could no longer teach on Mondays, and could we do that coming Saturday.

i replied saying this was very frustrating and disappointing given that’s what we had paid for, and asked her again if she had made any progress going into school, and that we were unable to do the Saturday.

A week later, having heard nothing further from her, I asked for a refund and found a new teacher for our daughter.

She is refusing to refund us, she said she thought it was unreasonable of us to ask for a refund, as she is covering teaching for her former violin teacher whose husband is ill. 

Any suggestions of what we can do? 

Thanks 

MyRealNameToo

Impossibleuniquename said:

My daughter started violin lessons with a teacher during the final term of the last academic year. Lessons were on a Monday, then the teacher moved them to a Thursday. At the start of this academic year, she said she could no longer do Thursdays, so we moved back to Mondays, with an agreement via text for 3:45pm. 

We did one week, and then a few days after the lesson the teacher messaged to ask if we could do later on a Monday. I said we couldn’t, and asked where she had got to with coming into school - something she had said she would organise with the school, which would have made things easier.
 

She didn’t reply about coming into school, but suggested some other days/times, none of which we could do (most of these had already been discussed when we started lessons, so she knew we had limited availability).

On the Monday morning (day of next lesson) we then got a message from the teacher saying she could no longer teach on Mondays, and could we do that coming Saturday.

i replied saying this was very frustrating and disappointing given that’s what we had paid for, and asked her again if she had made any progress going into school, and that we were unable to do the Saturday.

A week later, having heard nothing further from her, I asked for a refund and found a new teacher for our daughter.

She is refusing to refund us, she said she thought it was unreasonable of us to ask for a refund, as she is covering teaching for her former violin teacher whose husband is ill. 

Any suggestions of what we can do? 

Thanks 

So presumably you prepaid for a block of lessons? Was there a discount for block paying? Its not uncommon for it to be say £20/class or £150 for block of 10 

What are the terms of the agreement? In particular about both refunds and moving date/time of lessons? 

Impossibleuniquename

MyRealNameToo said:

Impossibleuniquename said:

My daughter started violin lessons with a teacher during the final term of the last academic year. Lessons were on a Monday, then the teacher moved them to a Thursday. At the start of this academic year, she said she could no longer do Thursdays, so we moved back to Mondays, with an agreement via text for 3:45pm. 

We did one week, and then a few days after the lesson the teacher messaged to ask if we could do later on a Monday. I said we couldn’t, and asked where she had got to with coming into school - something she had said she would organise with the school, which would have made things easier.
 

She didn’t reply about coming into school, but suggested some other days/times, none of which we could do (most of these had already been discussed when we started lessons, so she knew we had limited availability).

On the Monday morning (day of next lesson) we then got a message from the teacher saying she could no longer teach on Mondays, and could we do that coming Saturday.

i replied saying this was very frustrating and disappointing given that’s what we had paid for, and asked her again if she had made any progress going into school, and that we were unable to do the Saturday.

A week later, having heard nothing further from her, I asked for a refund and found a new teacher for our daughter.

She is refusing to refund us, she said she thought it was unreasonable of us to ask for a refund, as she is covering teaching for her former violin teacher whose husband is ill. 

Any suggestions of what we can do? 

Thanks 

So presumably you prepaid for a block of lessons? Was there a discount for block paying? Its not uncommon for it to be say £20/class or £150 for block of 10 

What are the terms of the agreement? In particular about both refunds and moving date/time of lessons? 

Yes, we lid for a block of lessons, and she didn’t provide any terms and conditions. 

Okell

Do you think it's not relevant to explain how much you paid in advance; what period that payment was meant to cover; how many lessons it was meant to cover, and perhaps a timeline of how long the arrangement worked for before it started to go off the rails?

Also what is the relevance of going into school?  Is the music teacher going into school to teach everybody or just your child?

Nobody here is a mind reader.

Please provide some meaningful information...

Impossibleuniquename

Okell said:

Do you think it's not relevant to explain how much you paid in advance; what period that payment was meant to cover; how many lessons it was meant to cover, and perhaps a timeline of how long the arrangement worked for before it started to go off the rails?

Also what is the relevance of going into school?  Is the music teacher going into school to teach everybody or just your child?

Nobody here is a mind reader.

Please provide some meaningful information...

We paid for a block of 8 Monday lessons (for the first half of the autumn term) in advance and had had one (as mentioned) before she then tried to change the day before ultimately (10 days after the first lesson, ie a Monday with no lesson had passed) said she could no longer teach on Mondays.

With regards going into school, the intention was that the school would promote the instrument so she could pick up more pupils, and also allow much more flexibility in teaching time, rather than trying to fit it into limited after school hours. So this would have solved the problem of finding an alternative time to the Monday we had paid for. 

I hope this satisfies your request for more details but if you want to know anything else before giving any advice do please let me know. 

Ricecrispies

I think I would contact the school and ask them what attempts had been made by the violin teacher to teach at school.  I would then contact the teacher again with better knowledge.

I quite agree that this is totally unacceptable behaviour.  One would not expect to have a written contract for music lessons, or pay for lessons that have not been given.  Especially when it was the teacher trying to alter a date and time you had both previously agreed, to suit her new arrangements.  Her excuse has nothing to do with you.  Presumably if this extra work had not cropped up, to benefit her, she would be sticking to the original plan.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Hello OP

There is a few things to consider here, firstly the type of contract you have, there are three and two of those come with a cancellation right, can you detail exactly how you met this teacher, discussed lessons and paid? 

Secondly when you have a contract the other party can't simply change the terms, otherwise a contract would be pointless, a trader can have terms which layout when they can alter a service but consumer protection under the Consumer Rights Act (CRA) requires the terms to be clear, specific and very limited, however if the teacher never gave you any terms then they don't have a right to vary the service under the agreement. 

Thirdly if the trader can't provide the service agreed and doesn't have a right to vary, again consumer protection under the CRA prevents them denying a refund.

Lastly our kid has lessons for an instrument, it was on a Thursday but kid was knackered by that point in the week and found it difficult to focus on occasion so we swapped to Tuesdays (teacher is lovely, was all no problem), point is you have a good argument for sticking to Mondays, i.e kid is refreshed from the weekend and ready to learn, delaying the lesson to later in the week potentially diminishes the value you would derive under the contract. 

Impossibleuniquename

Ricecrispies said:

I think I would contact the school and ask them what attempts had been made by the violin teacher to teach at school.  I would then contact the teacher again with better knowledge.

I quite agree that this is totally unacceptable behaviour.  One would not expect to have a written contract for music lessons, or pay for lessons that have not been given.  Especially when it was the teacher trying to alter a date and time you had both previously agreed, to suit her new arrangements.  Her excuse has nothing to do with you.  Presumably if this extra work had not cropped up, to benefit her, she would be sticking to the original plan.

Thanks, the school asked her to complete paperwork for a DBS check and she never did it…

Impossibleuniquename

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Hello OP

There is a few things to consider here, firstly the type of contract you have, there are three and two of those come with a cancellation right, can you detail exactly how you met this teacher, discussed lessons and paid? 

Secondly when you have a contract the other party can't simply change the terms, otherwise a contract would be pointless, a trader can have terms which layout when they can alter a service but consumer protection under the Consumer Rights Act (CRA) requires the terms to be clear, specific and very limited, however if the teacher never gave you any terms then they don't have a right to vary the service under the agreement. 

Thirdly if the trader can't provide the service agreed and doesn't have a right to vary, again consumer protection under the CRA prevents them denying a refund.

Lastly our kid has lessons for an instrument, it was on a Thursday but kid was knackered by that point in the week and found it difficult to focus on occasion so we swapped to Tuesdays (teacher is lovely, was all no problem), point is you have a good argument for sticking to Mondays, i.e kid is refreshed from the weekend and ready to learn, delaying the lesson to later in the week potentially diminishes the value you would derive under the contract. 

Yes if we had been able to
move lessons to another day that was mutually suitable we would have done so but there was no other mutually suitable time.

We were recommended the teacher via a contact of my other daughter’s guitar teacher - so not a direct recommendation but came from a well established teacher in the local area. We arranged lesson day and time and paid for lessons in advance - we did 2 half-terms before the summer break. We never received a contract.