Nursery - Threatening Debt Recovery After We Requested Our Child Be Removed **RESOLVED**

[OkYeah]

On Friday 24th of February, we sent an e-mail requesting the immediate removal of our baby daughter from our nursery which I am happy to name if necessary. There are several incidents that have pushed us into this decision.

 

Firstly,

there have been several occasions that our daughter was inappropriately dressed after visiting the nursery. This includes missing socks, missing shoes and even missing nappies.

 

Secondly,

the Nursery failed an Ofsted late last year. They received inadequate in EVERY category and were failed accordingly with a result of Inadequate overall. Ofsted made reference to children eating apples off the floor (which even made local news, so some googling on your part would find the nursery pretty quickly), in some cases which had been trodden on and made statements to the effect of "children were left to fend for themselves".

 

This failed report wasn't enough to convince us to remove her, as we appreciate that any business can have a bad day and we for the most part, we believed they meant well.

 

Thirdly,

the final straw came on Friday of last week. After our family battled one of the worst Novovirus experiences I've ever had (5 days of vomiting) and yet not knowing where this had come from, I phoned the nursery and was informed of an outbreak that had occurred in the baby room the previous week. This wasn't communicated through at al to us. In fact, no illnesses have ever been communicated to us which is staggering considering she's been there for over 6 months. This was the final straw.

 

The nursery have since contacted us and demand a huge overpayment of what we expected and threatening to pass the debt to a collection agency if we don't resolve this now. We do not challenge that she attended Nursery over February and that a payment remains outstanding. However I strongly challenge the figure they are presenting. 

 

On top of this they want

- Payment for 3 days that she was not in Nursery over half-term in October. We have copies of documents that we filled in before she started at the Nursery, that specifically state that we did NOT intend to take her in over half-term and we stuck to this. We also have an e-mail that we sent where we asked them to amend the invoice for October because they had included half-term. We did not pay the additional monies and paid our usual fee. This was not challenged at the time

 

- The rest of a 12 month payment plan. They claim we have signed a 12 month contract. I am yet to see anything which claims that we are locked into a 12 month contract though and I have all the documents that we sent. What I do have seen is a statement that the nursery requires 4 weeks of notice before a child can be removed and that monthly payments are calculated over a 12 month period to factor in August. This is not the same as being locked into a contract, this is merely adjusting the payments so that August (which includes 6 weeks holiday) are also covered as the school is closed.

 

Additionally, we have reviewed the original agreement that was made via e-mail and incredibly we have actually been overpaying by £57 a month. The original agreement was £487 yet they were demanding payment of £536 and we have been happily paying for this. I did not challenge this at the time, as this was mostly arranged by my partner.

 

We are happy to pay the days she attended for February and if it solves a problem, we will pay for the 2 additional days that she didn't attend in February. However, I strongly contest that these chancers have any legal grounding hence coming here for some expert advice. Does their failure of Ofsted etc constitute a contractual breakdown? They proudly hang on a sign on the front of their business claiming to be Ofsted Outstanding. Clearly that isn't the case.

 

Anything you can provide would be wonderful.

[dx100uk]

debt collectors are not and can never be bailiffs.

 

if you have overpaid by £xx over xx mts.

then write it out in a letter.

clearly stating you do/do not owe them any money and will gladly see them in court should they wish to chance their arm regarding the above details.

 

dx

[Ethel Street]

17 hours ago, OkYeah said:

Does their failure of Ofsted etc constitute a contractual breakdown? They proudly hang on a sign on the front of their business claiming to be Ofsted Outstanding. Clearly that isn't the case.

 

The banner is mere advertising and as such is not a term of their contract with you. Unless the contract commits them to retaining a certain Ofsted grade - and I'm certain it won't - then being downgraded by Ofsted is unlikely to have any contractual significance.

 

False advertising may be a breach of advertising regulations and you could report it to Trading Standards if you feel so inclined. Don't expect Trading Standards to do anything much though.

[dx100uk]

and?

 

 

[OkYeah]

This played out reasonably well. I phoned the owner and discussed the situation. Both my partner and her were incorrect in their maths and it took about 30 seconds with a calculator to resolve that. 

 

She was happy not to honour the 12 months contract so long as we paid off the balance in full.

 

Can't complain with that outcome.