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A person joined a Council run leisure facility membership scheme. An initial payment was taken by Credit Card and subsequent monthly payments were supposed to be taken using the valid Direct Debit mandate that the Council was provided with. An electronic membership card was issued and this had to be presented and checked each time a leisure facility was used. Membership Cards were supposed to be cancelled in the event of non-payment.
All seemed fine but after three years the Council back billed for three years membership because it had not taken any DD payments. The mandate had not been lost, the problem affected around 1% of leisure memberships. The Council has also had other DD issues affecting literally thousands of its DD users. The Council are willing to accept payment of the invoice in installments but do not appear willing to cancel or reduce the invoice amount.
In my, layman's, view the Council do not have any contractual basis for issuing the invoice - is that correct?
Are there any Consumer Rights points to allow payment of the invoice to be avoided?
I hold the above view because there was no agreement to retrospectively pay for a lengthy membership period via an invoice. The Council breached the original agreement by failing to take payment in the agreed way and by failing to cancel the cards promptly. Invoicing in this way is fundamentally different to the agreement that was entered into.
Also in some ways the Council did not actually suffer a loss. Thorough its own fault the Council failed to collect revenue but the cost of providing leisure facilities, such as a swimming pool, remained the same whether or not the person with the card made use of the facilities.
A twist in this is that the Direct Debit guarantee is that DD payments will be for the correct amount and taken at the correct time. In this case though the DD was never used so the guarantee does not seem to apply although a mandate was completed.
All seemed fine but after three years the Council back billed for three years membership because it had not taken any DD payments. The mandate had not been lost, the problem affected around 1% of leisure memberships. The Council has also had other DD issues affecting literally thousands of its DD users. The Council are willing to accept payment of the invoice in installments but do not appear willing to cancel or reduce the invoice amount.
In my, layman's, view the Council do not have any contractual basis for issuing the invoice - is that correct?
Are there any Consumer Rights points to allow payment of the invoice to be avoided?
I hold the above view because there was no agreement to retrospectively pay for a lengthy membership period via an invoice. The Council breached the original agreement by failing to take payment in the agreed way and by failing to cancel the cards promptly. Invoicing in this way is fundamentally different to the agreement that was entered into.
Also in some ways the Council did not actually suffer a loss. Thorough its own fault the Council failed to collect revenue but the cost of providing leisure facilities, such as a swimming pool, remained the same whether or not the person with the card made use of the facilities.
A twist in this is that the Direct Debit guarantee is that DD payments will be for the correct amount and taken at the correct time. In this case though the DD was never used so the guarantee does not seem to apply although a mandate was completed.
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