Can someone please help - I paid for my jacket to kept within a venues (UK) cloak room, when I went to collect my jacket, it was gone. The venue have admitted full liability. My question is, what am I entitled too in terms of compensation, I have requested a replacement jacket. The jacket is considered a collectors item and has therefore risen in value, the venue are only offering a refund of what I paid for the jacket - this amount will not be sufficient to replace it. My understanding is i "should be put back in the same position I was in prior to the theft". I have always maintained to the venue I want my own jacket back or a replacement. Can anyone advise what I am entitled too - is it what I paid for the jacket OR is it the replacement value ?

Hi quick query. been looking at the unfair terms in consumer contracts regulations 1999 to see if it will help me. my daughter cancelled her wedding, there are still over 8 months till the date, its peak wedding season so i have no doubt the venue can get a new booking. her total cost was £3200 she had to pay a deposit when booking of £1000 which is non refundable. true the terms do state it is not refundable however the Act says the contract may be unfair if irrevocably binding the consumer to terms with which he had no real opportunity of becoming acquainted before the conclusion of the contract; unfair if requiring any consumer who fails to fulfil his obligation to pay a disproportionately high sum in compensation; also i think there is a 1977 law that states it is unfair to retain a large sum if the losses incurred by a company are not proportionate to what they keep? I've written briefly to the company and their response is sorry, you signed, tough luck (not quite so blunt) I wonder should I just cut my losses or write a sterner letter? I appreciate they may have incurred some costs, but no food bought etc, plenty of time to rent out the venue again etc... thoughts anyone? thank you x

We booked our wedding at the beginning of this year. Our wedding was to take place in Summer 2016 and we put down a 12% deposit to secure our date. The wedding venue is brand new and was still unfinished when we booked. However there were two weddings booked for this summer, so we knew the venue had to be finished within a few months of us making our booking. When we booked there was no license in place for civil ceremonies to take place, but we were assured this would all be done by the beginning of August 2015. We have all of this in writing. We recently heard from the venue who told us that both weddings booked for this year had been cancelled. We were told the cancellations were nothing to do with the venue, though we are not so sure this is the case. We then received further communication from the venue, explaining that all renovations were now going to be put on hold due to personal problems (relationship breakdown). We were told the venue would be ready in time for our wedding but were not given any idea when the work would restart or how long it would take, despite asking for this information. In addition, the license for ceremonies has still not been granted, although we have recently found out this 'should' be in place by November. Communication from the owners has now become quite snippy, rude and unprofessional. As well as the venue we also have other suppliers booked, inc photographers, caterers etc. The venue was very unique and the majority of suppliers cannot be used elsewhere. We have around £1000 worth of deposits put down on these. We have already decided we are not going to go ahead with the wedding as planned. We did not get the reassurance we wanted from the venue and we did not want to spend the next year worrying about our plans. We are prepared to lose the deposits we have paid out if we need to, as we feel this is a small price to pay for peace of mind, but ideally of course we do need to recoup as much of the money as we can. I am just wondering if anyone can advise where we stand with regards to getting our deposits back? I am guessing with suppliers it would be down to their goodwill as to whether or not they wanted to refund, but what about the venue? We do have wedding insurance but they were not interested when I called them. We haven't been in touch with anyone so far to let them know that we will be cancelling the wedding, but would like to get this done ASAP as it is hanging over us.

Hi This is my first time posting here and would be grateful for any help and advice which could be provided. I am due to get married in a coupe of months at a venue which is a National Heritage Trust building, for which we paid a 20% deposit around February this year after seeing the venue and agreeing terms with the company which run events at the venue. Around late September we found out by chance, whilst looking for a wedding florist, that the roof at the venue was deemed structurally unsound and is presently being propped up by scaffolding, including some in the room where we are due to be married (wedding ceremony and reception both to be held in the same room). This had apparently been the case since mid August, although the venue had not notified us and it turned out that they had had to cancel a couple of weddings and move a couple to a large marquee in the lawns. Had we not found out through the florist, who knows when they would have advised us and we are aware that one of the other weddings which went ahead was only given 72 hours notice of the problems. Naturally we contacted them at this stage and they advised that they were waiting on a structural surveyors report. When this eventually came out, they advised that works would not commence until January and we would have to get married in the room with scaffolding which they have attempted to cover up. The room however looks terrible in comparison and my bride to be was naturally very upset. We have now found an alternative and are considering switching venues although this does present us with a couple of problems. A number of guests have already booked rooms at the adjoining hotel (also part of the trust but run and managed by an entirely separate entity to those that run weddings at the main hall) and the hotel are refusing to hand back any deposits, despite cancellation being requested around 7-8 weeks in advance. My questions is, would we have any recourse to having the wedding venue reimburse us for the cost of these deposits should we lose ours as well as the cost of a wedding license change? Are we able to claim for any additional costs we incur as a result of this change? Alternatively, would we have any recourse against the company that run the Hotel to return our deposits? I really have no place to start so any advice or guidance would be hugely appreciated.

I have booked a local venue for a wedding renewal next year, they have stipulated a list of suppliers for services such as chair covers etc that I "have" to use ! However I have already found companies that I would like to use. Can they legally force me to use their preferred companies ????

We hired a barn as a wedding venue for our daughters wedding. The barn was advertised as a wedding venue and had a wedding licence. The barn is used solely for functions with a kitchen, bar, hard carpeted floor etc. The charge for hire for 4 days was £2900. On the surface the venue looked ideal and fitted in with the theme my daughter had decided on for the wedding. We took over hire on the Thursday before a Saturday wedding - the first things we had to do was set to work on cleaning the toilets that were in a disgusting state, cobwebs adorned the walls of the barn and all had to be brushed down and then the floor cleaned. The area outside the main doors was covered in cigarette ends and the kitchen surfaces cleaned and disinfected. We laid out the tables and set places for the 70 guests and all was set by the Friday night. On checking the barn on the Saturday morning rat droppings were discovered on the tables and it was decided that all the cutlery should be washed again. also a box of chocolates that had been left in the kitchen had been eaten by rats. During the evening the electricity supply to the barn was continually going off plunging our guests into darkness - the owners representative blamed our bands equipment but it was proved later to be a fault in the barns heating system. Throughout the whole of the hire period the owners representative was unhelpful, arrogant, rude and showed absolutely no interest in providing any service whatsoever. We have complained to the owner that we did not consider the barn was fit for purpose and he has apologised and offered us £300 in compensation. We don't consider this is sufficient - does anyone agree?

Hello, This is a very useful forum and I'm hoping someone can help me. My issue is as follows: I saw a wedding venue that I liked and was offered a good price; I was told that this discounted cost would not be offered after that meeting so I gave the proprietor £50 as a sort of holding fee - this was simply to show my active interest in the venue and to gain priority over other customers if I decided to book. I never at any stage considered the £50 as a 'booking'. Nothing was signed, no terms & conditions were discussed, and no mention was made of the company's cancellation charges. A few days later I received a contract and an invoice in the post with a Booking Form attached to it; in the contract the £50 was referred to as a "deposit" (I never considered it as one). In the invoice they stated, "Please copy and return the booking form to us within 7 days. In the event that we have not received a signed copy of the booking form by the due date, your reservation may be released from our diaries". At this stage the wedding date had changed I had found a better venue so I called and told them I was no longer interested. It's been two months since this happened. The venue have now contacted me asking me to pay the balance. I informed them that I had called a few months before and told them that I wasn't interested, but they claim that since I did not communicate this in writing, and it is now less than three months before the wedding, I have to pay a cancellation fee of 75% of the full balance (this amounts to over £6000) for cancelling the "booking" at this stage. Their solicitors have additionally contacted me asking me to pay within 7 days or they will take court action. I am contesting this on the following points: I did not at any stage book the venue. The £50 was not a deposit, it was a holding fee to show interest since we were pressured into believing that the price would go up if we called back in future. They referred to it as a deposit. Nothing was signed and I was not made aware of any cancellation charges or that I would need to communicate my disinterest in writing. I was not told anything when I cancelled on the phone either, which is an error of miscommunication on their part. If I had known these things when I called them 6 months before the wedding, and had submitted a written response accordingly, then I would not be liable to pay any charges since this would not have fallen within the company's 'less than 3 months cancellation charge' criteria. Despite the above, I would like your valued input on the following: Does the company have any legal claim against me in the above situation? Is there anything else I can add in response to their solicitors regarding the viability of my claims against those of the company? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you

First of all apologies if I have posted this in the wrong subforum. We are getting married at the end of October in Worcester (we live in Birmingham). We are only getting married in Worcester as I found an amazing deal on Ebay for the wedding breakfast/reception which would've saved us a fortune in comparison with other venues. I won the auction and was over the moon with what we got for the price. Visited venue - Perfect. We then proceeded to book the wedding at a castle in Worcester which wasn't far from the venue, booked the registrar, chair covers, cars etc....all of which have been centered around the venue in Worcester and deposits have been paid. The venue called me last week to say they had some bad news for us, they were closing in September. It is a country pub and basically the brewery have been messing them around by increasing prices etc....so they have ended the lease. They have had to cancel all their weddings. The girl offered us 3 options: 1. We could wait to see if they get a buyer (not a chance - too risky and we don't have the time) 2. Full refund 3. We could transfer the package to their sister hotel, a few miles away. We have already booked the hotel out for the night for guests to stay and it is lovely. The only problem is they can only fit 40 guests in the restaurant for the sit down meal (we have 61!!). So, she said they have a marquee which could be used so we could get everyone in and this sounded like a good idea to us. We went to visit the hotel yesterday and she showed us to the marquee which wasn't how we imagined. It was dirty, the carpet was filthy, the marquee poles on show. It just looked more like a cold plain dirty circus tent if I'm honest. Not suitable for a wedding. The girl got a bit funny with us saying that all the other couples she showed this to have been pleased with it. I would be embarrassed to take guests there tbh. She offered the marquee to us for £500 as they would have to hire a kitchen, staff etc... We really thought they should pay as they have ruined everything for us but they have offered us 18 bottles of wine for the tables as an apology. We expressed our concern about the marquee and she said she will email me this afternoon to see if they can do anything to make it look nicer (drapes, fairy lights etc...). I am basically wondering if we can take this further with anyone? My partner has lost all trust in this venue so if she says she can do something to the marquee, he will not take it as something else could happen down the line. We have been looking at other venues in Worcester and they cost a few thousand pounds. We won this for £512.00 for everything. I don't think we will find anything in Worcs so it is more than likely we will have to cancel and rebook everything in Birmingham which we will lose our deposits for everything. Where do we stand legally? I have no written contract from them, just a receipt and details of the Ebay package. Sorry this is so long xx

:help:ok bit of a long one but this is as brief as i can get it! The hotel we booked to get married at has [edit] form day one, we so badly wanted to get married outside and the hotels we viewed all had beautiful gardens etc, but we needed to be happy with the room if it happened to be bad weather! Ok so we finally found one that we fell in love with, it had been taken over by a company after the previous owners went into liquidation etc, we viewed it at the final stages of re decoration, literally the decorators were packing things up as we were shown around, we asked to see the place we could have the ceremony outside and they said they were due to meet with an interior designer in the week to draw plans etc but showed us where it would be built. We had a year til our wedding so didnt think there would be any issues as were also told they were really making sure the whole hotel was completed in time for wedding season. So we came away, discussed it and a week later put a £800 deposit to secure our date. Ok so moving on a few weeks, we met with the registrar who said she'd seen the plans for the 'gazebo' and it looks stunning etc. Emailed the hotel to discuss food etc and asked about 'gazebo' in a few emails. One of the emails i received stated that the chairman had given confirmation the 'gazebo' would be built in time for our wedding. Ok moving on to about 6/7 weeks prior to wedding we receive another email stating they been having problems with planning so 'gazebo' wont be built in time so as a 'good will' we can have our drinks package for free. Ok now if that had been genuine, i would of accepted the offer. I went to the local planning office and checked............No planning application submitted....... at all! They knew we were relying on the 'gazebo' for our wedding. Ive tried questioning them just to be [edit] further to and finally got the response of 'Not to pursue the planning query any further' Now i dont want to push it too far as we only have a few weeks to go and they know we wont find anywhere at such a late date! What can we do legally? Sorry its long but thats not even half of it! thanks