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Thread: Covid: Contract wording going forward.

  1. #11
    Pazz's Avatar
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    I'd be inclined to offer the option of carrying the deposit over to a new date but if they wouldn't want to or are not interested in re-booking then I'd be insisting the booking fee is non-refundable as per T&C's. At the same time I would look to reword the T&C's for the future if they didn't already cover 'unprecedented circumstances' but I would have thought my terms from a few years ago would have already included 'circumstances beyond our control'. Either way I think I'd be covered if there were any challenges.
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  2. #12
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    I haven't altered my contract wording, just given them a rider in emails that penalty clauses won't be applied for cancellations, and for new bookings this year that I shan't take deposits.

    At the next contract revision, Zombie Apocalypse is definitely going in. If the world can come to a standstill because of Bats and Anteaters, anything can happen.
    Excalibur. Older than the average DJ.

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  3. #13

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    My stepdaughter and fiance have cancelled their wedding, planned for April 2021. They had paid £1,500 "up front" as per their agreement.

    I have asked them to include in their cancellation letter a request for the refunding of this £1,500 (in full for now) and see what reaction is forthcoming.

    As has already been said, retained deposits or whatever should be commensurate with costs and fees already incurred by the supplier. Now, all they have to show for their money is one show round one Sunday that took around 30 minutes and a few rather short and sketchy e-mails. Hardly costing £1,500.

    Their photographer has just said forget it and returned their £50.

    They were getting their DJ for free, well I couldn't really charge them could I!

  4. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by mattydj50 View Post
    I have asked them to include in their cancellation letter a request for the refunding of this £1,500 (in full for now) and see what reaction is forthcoming.

    As has already been said, retained deposits or whatever should be commensurate with costs and fees already incurred by the supplier. Now, all they have to show for their money is one show round one Sunday that took around 30 minutes and a few rather short and sketchy e-mails. Hardly costing £1,500.
    The phrase is "commensurate with losses incurred". That is allowed to include loss of income due to not being able to re-book the date (and is dependent on the amount of notice given, how much demand there is for the date and if the date is able to be re-booked). It'll be interesting to see what the venue responds with.

    I'll probably read about this later in one of the Facebook industry support groups.

    Julian
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  5. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by mattydj50 View Post
    My stepdaughter and fiance have cancelled their wedding, planned for April 2021. They had paid £1,500 "up front" as per their agreement.

    I have asked them to include in their cancellation letter a request for the refunding of this £1,500 (in full for now) and see what reaction is forthcoming.

    As has already been said, retained deposits or whatever should be commensurate with costs and fees already incurred by the supplier. Now, all they have to show for their money is one show round one Sunday that took around 30 minutes and a few rather short and sketchy e-mails. Hardly costing £1,500.

    Their photographer has just said forget it and returned their £50.

    They were getting their DJ for free, well I couldn't really charge them could I!
    The advice is getting a bit confused, because some people are now treating the advice that has been given during the Covid-19 lockdown situation as applying to all cancellations.

    For an event next year, it is simply a cancellation, and the terms and conditions of the contract will be relevant.

    The value here is the reservation of the date - not the show round and a few emails.

    The difference during the Covid-19 lockdown was that the service simply couldn't be provided due to lockdown, hence why the refund situation was very different - unprecedented.

    The venue may be lenient and refund as a gesture of goodwill, but they are not entitled by default to a refund. Equally, it's worth checking the contract, as the cancellation fee can be higher than the deposit paid.

  6. #16
    Jim - Scotland's Party DJ's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by rth_discos View Post
    The advice is getting a bit confused, because some people are now treating the advice that has been given during the Covid-19 lockdown situation as applying to all cancellations.

    For an event next year, it is simply a cancellation, and the terms and conditions of the contract will be relevant.

    The value here is the reservation of the date - not the show round and a few emails.

    The difference during the Covid-19 lockdown was that the service simply couldn't be provided due to lockdown, hence why the refund situation was very different - unprecedented.

    The venue may be lenient and refund as a gesture of goodwill, but they are not entitled by default to a refund. Equally, it's worth checking the contract, as the cancellation fee can be higher than the deposit paid.
    This.

    It's amazing how many legal experts are cutting around FB bride groups just now off the back of a Martin Lewis tweet or something they've heard about from a friends auntie's cat.

  7. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by rth_discos View Post
    The advice is getting a bit confused, because some people are now treating the advice that has been given during the Covid-19 lockdown situation as applying to all cancellations.

    For an event next year, it is simply a cancellation, and the terms and conditions of the contract will be relevant.

    The value here is the reservation of the date - not the show round and a few emails.

    The difference during the Covid-19 lockdown was that the service simply couldn't be provided due to lockdown, hence why the refund situation was very different - unprecedented.

    The venue may be lenient and refund as a gesture of goodwill, but they are not entitled by default to a refund. Equally, it's worth checking the contract, as the cancellation fee can be higher than the deposit paid.
    Yurp, but this was muddy water before Covid. The CMA had already looked into the practice of deposits and refunds in the wedding industry prior to Covid and found a lot of contracts and clauses around deposits and cancellations to be unfair.

    In short, the amounts must represent actual losses. That means that if they manage to re-book the date to another couple, they should refund everything except the actual costs incurred. If they don't manage to re-book it, then the figure can be a lot higher. This does mean that, quite frequently with venues, you can cancel and ask for a refund but the response you get may be that they will hold onto funds paid (and potentially ask for more) until such a time as they manage to fill the date.

    Covid19 changes the picture because the contract effectively ceases to exist and the date becomes worthless.

    Julian
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  8. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by DJ Jules View Post
    Yurp, but this was muddy water before Covid. The CMA had already looked into the practice of deposits and refunds in the wedding industry prior to Covid and found a lot of contracts and clauses around deposits and cancellations to be unfair.

    In short, the amounts must represent actual losses. That means that if they manage to re-book the date to another couple, they should refund everything except the actual costs incurred. If they don't manage to re-book it, then the figure can be a lot higher. This does mean that, quite frequently with venues, you can cancel and ask for a refund but the response you get may be that they will hold onto funds paid (and potentially ask for more) until such a time as they manage to fill the date.

    Covid19 changes the picture because the contract effectively ceases to exist and the date becomes worthless.

    Julian
    FB Legal Eagle
    No, this was not what the CMA were picking up on.

    They were complaining about excessive cancellation fees, and was primarily targeted at venues.

    And there was good reason for that.

    Let's say if you cancel 4 weeks before a wedding, the venue would often charge a 100% cancellation fee.

    The reason this is unfair in the CMA's eye was that the venue at that stage wouldn't then hire in the staff for the date, and would cancel the food order.

    So at a 100% cancellation fee, they would have made more profit, than if they had put the wedding on, because the costs incurred by the venue wouldn't have been has high compared to if they had put the wedding on.

    So the cancellation fee should be representative of the costs incurred by the venue, including any profit they should have made on that date - but not to make extra profit from a cancellation compared to if the wedding had gone ahead.

    The CMA didn't word this very well, but this was the scenario they were referring to.

    The problem is that has meant it's been very easy to misinterpret.

  9. #19

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    For my sins I did a Law degree at university and found it painfully boring! This year’s Coronavirus and the governments of the world’s reactions to it bring up something I think a lot of people in the legal world largely consigned to the history books except in one-off cases - frustration in contract law.


    My ears pricked up when we studied it because ‘deposits’ came up in quite a few of the facts of the classic cases on it. Plus a common textbook example given of when frustration applies is someone hires a venue for a function but the venue burns down before the function and neither the person hiring the venue nor the owner of the venue or their staff etc were responsible. Well, this was something I thought might be useful to know about so I paid attention at the time.

    Essentially the situation we have, which has been in my view (for what it’s worth) correctly explained on here so far, is that the customer who has paid things like “deposits” on hiring DJs etc for dates that are now impossible to carry on for reasons beyond their control and also not the fault of the DJs can get what they’ve paid back. However, DJs can retain part of the sums paid to them for reasonable costs incurred in performing what they have done so far. This is where what Benny Smyth said earlier is important - a £50 ‘booking and admin fee’ is going to be a lot easier to justify than one for £500 for the most

    Personally I think a well drafted ‘force majeure’ clause(s) is worthwhile. Spell out exactly what is to happen in the event of x, y and z and where your liabilities stop in particular! Given what’s happened this year, I don’t think it would hurt to revisit the ‘what happens in the event of things beyond our control’ sections of your contracts.

    There’s a decent, not too full of legalese article about force majeure clauses and frustration here : https://www.farrer.co.uk/news-and-in...d-frustration/
    Last edited by Marc J; 11-07-2020 at 11:41 AM.

  10. #20

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    Quote Originally Posted by rth_discos View Post
    No, this was not what the CMA were picking up on.

    They were complaining about excessive cancellation fees, and was primarily targeted at venues.

    So the cancellation fee should be representative of the costs incurred by the venue, including any profit they should have made on that date - but not to make extra profit from a cancellation compared to if the wedding had gone ahead.

    The problem is that has meant it's been very easy to misinterpret.
    I stand corrected, and 100% agree with that last sentence I went back through all of the CMA guidance on deposits and cancellations a few days before I replied to this thread and that wasn't made clear at all.

    The reason I went back over the guidance was to try and get a definitive answer about whether fixed costs were allowed to be included when calculating "Covid19" refunds - as one of the wedding industry action groups shared a guest blog from a photographer posted on Stanford Gould's website that contradicted advice that Heather Stanford gave in the early days of lockdown. I don't know if anyone else knows the answer to that question?

    Julian
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    Weddings, Birthday Parties, Kids Parties, School Disco's and more
    https://julianburr.co.uk - Wedding, Family, Portrait and Product Photography

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