Nursery changed terms - expecting full fees

[anotherdayanothername20]

Hi, our nursery changed their Terms at the start of March to say that if they had a closure due to Statutory Reasons (Government directed) we would still pay full fees....
What are people's opinions? And is this legal? We obviously don't want them to go out of business but also we can't afford to pay full fees and work full time either and look after children full time. None of it is adding up.

Question re: insurance. This is an unprecedented situation. The company I work for (finance company in central London) aren’t covered-
It’s not a sign of sloppy admin or cheap insurance.

Lawyer here. It's definitely unfair under the Consumer Rights Act (not the Consumer Contracts Regulations mentioned above - those cover something else) to charge for a service which isn't provided over a long period of time. The nursery is putting the entirety of the risk on the consumer when it's a risk outside of the consumer's control, whilst not actually incurring 100% all its normal costs.

Other industries are giving refunds / not charging (e.g. airlines, hotels). The fact that nurseries are in not such a good financial position has no impact on the application of the Act. Unfortunately the government needs to step up and provide some financial support to the nurseries.

Regardless of the arguments as to whether parents should pay or not, in reality many won't be able to. If no money is coming in, then bills can't be paid.

DH and I are both self employed and our businesses are already being massively affected. Those of you on salaries just don't seem to understand what is happening here. If I don't have an income, I can't pay the bills. It's not a matter of principle, it's just basic maths

@shinyredbus But that's disgusting! The rest of the country are likely to be forced into taking unpaid leave, yet nursery workers can receive full pay for doing nothing??

Under normal circumstances I can understand you having to pay full regardless but under these unprecedented times I think it's utterly appalling and downright selfish of them

@KaptenKrusty Do you think it was in the terms and conditions of the parent's employment contract to be on random unprecedented amounts of unpaid leave? No.

You're bang out of order. You cannot make them pay a single penny! Unless your 'terms and conditions' explicitly mention a pandemic of global proportions, forcing the government into today's actions then I'm afraid you can't charge a penny!

@KaptenKrusty Also, why on earth should you and your staff have the luxury of being paid when likely none of the parents of your children will be? Yet you're forcing them to pay yours & your staff wages whilst not being able to earn a penny themselves?

Give your head a shake

It’s simple if you’re still getting paid and want to keep your place pay but tell them you do not agree to the terms and propose new terms whereby you pay a reduced fee as presumably the fee includes food and will cover overheads (not including wages) which they won’t be paying. If not tell them to jog on in the politest way explaining that if you’re not getting paid then you cannot pay them.

My childminder ask me to start supplying food for DC last week but wanted me to still pay the full amount honestly these childcare providers live on cloud cuckoo!!!

I’m not sure of the T&C of our parent contracts but my boss will be paying full pay to all contract staff available to work (ie not self isolating etc) so we need to keep some money coming in. We do have children of key workers at our setting so hopefully we can carry on a bit longer for them while doing other tasks that need doing through the nursery.

Surely if they can’t provide a service you shouldn’t have to pay in full. Perhaps a holding fee particularly as the government is offering financial help. This could go on for months.

Sod that honestly. No service, no money. That's the rule for everyone else. If Ryanair are giving money back, then I'd say the nursery should too! They won't be paying their 0 hours contract staff and it's bollocks that there won't be a nursery next year. Supply and demand innit?!

They can't charge OP - as several people have mentioned it's would be covered in both contract law and by the consumer act.

Just send a nice email explaining that it's not lawful, but you understand how difficult the next few months will be for them as it's going to be for most people. I presume you pay fees in advance? You could say that you're happy for them to keep next month's fees.

a lot of our parents have said they are happy to pay (a discounted rate)

The ones that will not then I understand - but we will be offering their space to someone else on the wait list as we can't hold the space for them

I have to say some people are horrible on here - saying the time we are shut is a holiday for our staff?? it's literally not - it is a forced unpaid leave situation and to be honest I'll probably start looking for a new job as i can't survive for long without money coming in!

People were campaigning for the nurseries to be closed - but didn't think of the consequences for the people that work there! I understand why it is being done - but the aftermath of this is going to be disastrous unfortunately!

I was/am really worried about this.

I do not want my child to lose their place, so I will pay for April.

I have enough food stocked in my cupboards to last a while, but if another month goes by and the nursery is still closed, I may struggle to find that money to pay.

I agree with those saying that maybe a discounted amount would be fair?

I don't believe it woul dbe a holiday for staff, I can tell that none of tehm like this situation as much as parents don't like it. It's shit all round.

I would like the govt to pay the fees and for parents to be able to keep that money in their pockets for just in case reasons.

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petition.parliament.uk/petitions/301836
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Give your notice and re join when they open in september

@KaptenKrusty
I spend a lot of time arguing cases like this (I work for a charity) and the other sides argument is always the same:

"It was in the terms and conditions, which you signed and therefore you are bound by them on the basis that you signed them"

This is untrue, the CRA is very clear that any term that is unfair to the consumer is always non-binding, even if the consumer read, understood and signed them.

While we are on the subject, terms that give the business the right to unilaterally change the terms of the contract to the detriment of the consumer are always unfair and therefore non-binding on the consumer.

The fact that your t&cs are standard is even less in your favour, a judge is much more likely to strike out terms in a contract if the consumer had no opportunity to negotiate them.

I think the problem is that a lot of people get confused between business-business contract law, and business-consumer law.

The former is considered to be between parties who know what they are doing and have negotiated a deal and therefore you would be a lot more likely to be held to the terms.

A business-consumer contract must always be fair in the consumer. If it isn't, a judge will just chuck it out.

We're not 'horrible' @KaptenKrusty we just expect you to obey the law.

Is that so unreasonable?

The problem isn't that you don't understand the law.

My nursery, which shuts tomorrow, has asked parents to honour the April payment so their staff can be fully paid for one month. They have said anyone wanting to hold their place thereafter will pay a significantly reduced amount. We are happy to pay what we need to, it's a wonderful nursery and everyone there was very sad this morning, it was horrible. I appreciate not everyone is in a financial position to do this though.

Regarding the insurance position for those who are interested....

Losses arising from infectious diseases like this will be specifically excluded from business interruption policies. Insurers updated their policies following the SARS outbreak so most businesses will not be covered.

To be covered, businesses would have had to buy an infectious diseases extension cover. Only a few v large companies will have bought this.

So mostly not covered under insurance, including in this nursery case I expect.

However this is an unprecedented event that no one has planned for that will cause enormous losses. No single entity would be able to cover those losses on their own (I.e gov can’t afford it alone, neither can insurance industry, neither can the businesses themselves absorb the losses).

What I expect will happen, when the dust has settled, is a joint arrangement between governments and insurance industry to try to compensate people and keep the economy afloat...sharing the cost burden, with more industries roped in besides - e.g mortgage holidays from the banks, business rate exemptions from gov.

So economically no one industry will carry the cost (because it would ruin them), but it will have to be a cooperative effort across the board and everyone will have to make concessions.

Businesses will eventually get compensated by this means I think, but it’ll take a while to get it set up, not to mention all the wider horrible risks we are all facing regarding Coronavirus that will slow things down.

Which really doesn’t help businesses in the meantime who will go to the wall. On this thread both sides have justified fears and valid arguments to support their positions. No point tearing strips off each other at this point, we need to empathise with and support each other, and muddle along/co-operate until we come out the other side and mend the damage as much as we can.

Just so sad that so many folks will suffer in the meantime - through the disease, through losing loved ones as well as the economic hit.

Good luck folks. Take care of yourselves and each other. Keep on washing those hands!

Stop paying and find a new one when they all reopen again

There won’t be any left 🤣

If you don't have adequate insurance, and you can't afford to plug the gap yourself, then you go under, I'm afraid..

Most insurance won't cover businesses for this type of thing, it's not a case of not having adequate insurance, it's a case of insurers not covering it! Can you imagine how much they would be liable to pay out now? They wouldn't be able to, which is why they don't offer it. I would be surprised if the ones saying they are get much in this scenario; definitely won't get enough from that alone to stay afloat. If nurseries all close which will make it really tricky for people to get back to work, I wonder who will suffer most? I'll give a clue, not men.

Personally, if you are still getting a full time wage still you should pay, if not there should be some discretion. We are all paying our childminder full fees for April, and then will see going forward. She offered 20% fees, but she is worth her weight in gold and we are in a fortunate position to not worrying about how to keep the roof over our heads. If other people are in the same privelledged position then pay in my opinion, this should help ease the burden on those who cannot afford to pay it, and keep them afloat. And no, I wouldn't begrudge that.

Excellent post @FortunesFavour.

@Marieo, do childminders have to close? I didn’t think they were included in the closure notice. Where do you draw the line- nannies are OK aren’t they?

I think that one important point being missed here is that some childcare workers could take on individual childcare work in the homes of the nursery kids, maybe two families sharing. So the parents still get childcare and the nursery doesn’t have to keep paying its staff. Win-win, apart from the one-to-one rate probably being higher than nursery fees.

Lawyer here.

Apart from consumer protection issue, the key is that nursery cannot unilaterally vary contract to the detriment of the parent.

OP said no opportunity to decline and change not explained. It cannot be said that continuing to send your child is agreement to the change in those circumstances, as if parents had understood they would not have ageed.

So parents can terminate and take their kid out. Not sure thanks the desired outcome, though.

What you cant do is not pay and still have your kid signed up to that nursery.

Thanks @ArgumentativeAardvaark. That cheered me up as I’m slowly going going stir crazy....

It does seem harsh. We are charging half fees for anyone that cannot attend due to not having a 'keyworker' parent for April. If we get financially compensated by the government, we will rethink this for May and beyond and won't charge if we don't have to. These are difficult times