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Scottish bride and groom here. Would you consider this to be fair terms of cancellation for a wedding caterer. We cancelled on him 4 months in advance not knowing how the pandemic restrictions would play out to be safe. With a > £1200 advance payment, and not having to buy in ingredients, he refuses to give us a breakdown of his expenses to justify a "disproportionate" cancellation fee.
Our contract stipulates:
The couple may cancel this contract at any time, subject to the following charges.
1. Cancellation with More than 6 calendar months notice - Loss of the 25% booking fee.
2. Cancellation with 3 to 6 calendar months notice - 75% of the overall package price.
3. Cancellation with less than 3 calendar months - 100% of the overall package price.
Currently being invoiced for > £2600 for an event that's not gone ahead, and we believe it's not a true reflection of his actual loss due to our cancellation. The CMA advice to business owners for when a customer cancels a contract is "when you are not at fault, you only seek to recover losses that you have reasonably incurred".
Any advice would be amazing as the contact with our caterer has become distant and a little sour, we're getting bombarded with invoices daily almost to bully us into paying. Are we legally bound to paying 75% of the invoice when he's not spent more than a couple of hours drawing up a menu?
Our contract stipulates:
The couple may cancel this contract at any time, subject to the following charges.
1. Cancellation with More than 6 calendar months notice - Loss of the 25% booking fee.
2. Cancellation with 3 to 6 calendar months notice - 75% of the overall package price.
3. Cancellation with less than 3 calendar months - 100% of the overall package price.
Currently being invoiced for > £2600 for an event that's not gone ahead, and we believe it's not a true reflection of his actual loss due to our cancellation. The CMA advice to business owners for when a customer cancels a contract is "when you are not at fault, you only seek to recover losses that you have reasonably incurred".
Any advice would be amazing as the contact with our caterer has become distant and a little sour, we're getting bombarded with invoices daily almost to bully us into paying. Are we legally bound to paying 75% of the invoice when he's not spent more than a couple of hours drawing up a menu?
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