Wedding Deposit

A question about : Wedding Deposit

Morning all,

I was wondering if anyone could help shed any light on the situation I am as it's really stressing me out.

My Fiance and I put down a deposit for a wedding venue less than 14 days ago. The deposit we put down was around 15%.

As per the contract we are required to put down a 25% non refundable deposit in order to confirm a booking.

Here are the terms:

Payment terms are as follows:
25% non-refundable deposit of contracted venue rate – on the date of contract signing.

A non-refundable deposit of 25% of the overall charge must be paid to The Company by The Client to confirm any booking. If the deposit and signed contracts are not received within this time, all booking/quote will become invalid. The Company then reserves the right to accept another booking for this date.

The wedding date we booked was to be in 18 months time, and three other couples were looking to book the venue for the same date.

We wanted to cancel the venue as it had taken a significant amount of time for the sales managers to respond back to us, and they were now ignoring our calls and emails since receiving some sort of deposit.

We have formally written to the venue about cancellation and our deposit, using the above reasons, however, they have refused to give back the deposit.

Where do we stand legally? Has anyone got any further advice?

Thanks

Best answers:

• I'm sorry to say but it looks like the clue is in the title. NON-REFUNDABLE deposit. If you signed and paid then you have to stick to what the contract says and they have no obligation to pay you back anything.
  You are lucky you only paid 15% and not the 25%.
  Unless you didn't sign anything then I don't really know what else you can do as you agreed to it. You need to work out if you can afford to cancel and go elsewhere or if it's best staying with them.
  Maybe speak to CAB and see if they can suggest anything?
• What reason do you have to cancel - that the staff haven't had time to get back to you? Perhaps they have been busy with other people's events, or perhaps someone has been off sick?
  Why not go to the venue and speak to them, face to face. Yes, you may have to take time off work to do this, but better to get it sorted than not.
• Difficult one. In this case the venue has probably turned three other couples away after you put down a deposit.
  Usually companies cannot keep money they haven't performed services for but in this case they could argue they've turned away business so in effect you've caused them a loss.
  I'd suggest that in this case you should move on and forget about the deposit. Seems the fairest thing to do in this instance.
• If you cancel and they don't refund, then they book another wedding for your date they have made no loss so you can claim the deposit back.