Childcare fees refund

[Honeybea15]

I’ve recently moved childcare settings due to longer hours needed, there’s been a credit on my account for a while as one month I overpaid, this isn’t TFC, I sent it from my bank account to theirs.

The owner is ignoring all of my messages, emails and calls when I’ve been asking for it back. I cannot for the life of me get hold of them.

Its a sizeable amount and I could do with it contributing towards the new childcare invoice.

What can I do in this situation?

What does your contract say? I imagine you pay for a fixed period at a time, so it may well be that if you leave in the middle of the period you aren't entitled to a refund.

I never received a contract, it was a new playschool at the time so I think everything was just rushed, however it does say on their policies that 2 months notice is required, which I have given and its term time only so the term has just finished! :)

When was your child's last session and when did you tell the provider? I assume that, if your child finished in June, you told her in April? I'm not sure what the relevance of "term finishing" is, unless your contract only ran to the end of the summer term, but that would be mid July, so you would still need to give 2 months notice if your child was finish before then. Also confused by "so term has only just finished" - term still has 3 weeks or so here, unless you are in Scotland?

It’s a term time only pre-school so it is relevant, I told them she won’t be returning in September, 2 months notice, why would it be relevant which part of the country I live in? I said the term has finished, I asked for advice on the situation, not to be patronised. Please don’t reply unless you have something useful to contribute instead of putting what I’ve said in quotations.

You're asking for advice but what you have written isn't clear. PP @stichguru was asking for clarity and didn't deserve your snippy response.

Only you have sight of the policies, but I would think that they require you to give 2 months notice during the time they operate, hence the question about when notice was given. April would certainly cover you not returning in September, but notice given in July might not if they are closed in July and August.

Also, there are different legal answers for Scotland compared with England, Wales, etc.

Because 2 months notice in a TTO setting is probably 2 months before the end of the child's final term.

In England withdrawing your child 2 at the end of the summer term would require notice in mid May, 2 months before term ends mid July.
In Scotland (which I guess you might be given you talk as if term is over) my friends' grandson finishes early June, so 2 months notice before term finished would be early April.

Without knowing when you withdrew your child, and when the end of term was or is we've no idea whether you are being very fairly charged for 2 months of term because you didn't let them know your child was leaving 2 months before term ended, or very unfairly being charged for 2 months of holiday. Anyway whatever.