Hotel threatening to sue us for bad review

[Itsalongwayto]

Unashamedly posting in AIBU for traffic. We stayed in a truly dreadful place over the August BH weekend. I wrote to the owner afterwards expressing our displeasure and with a long list of complaints including unsecure blind pulls, a trampoline with no safety net, water features with no warning, general filth and 1980s decor (I expect more at £300/night). Additionally one of the curtain poles fell down on my head. He wrote back ignoring most of my points but stating that he was disappointed that I hadn’t said thank you to them for fixing the curtain pole so quickly . I submitted a review on reevoo and Tripadvisor, neither of which have been published yet......but he has emailed threatening to sue us if we don’t take our review down (I’m assuming he has been sent a preview). We have photographs of everything except the awful smell.
I’m assuming it’s safe to just ignore and block? I’m not taking my review down.

You can’t sue anyone for a bad review.

If it's the hotel I think it is, the owner is on record in the local newspaper as saying that he thinks that Basil Fawlty has some very good attributes for anyone going into the hospitality industry.

Just make sure everything you say is factual (ideally with evidence to back it up). Don't speculate or exaggerate (e.g. 'this is the worst hotel in the south east!') or make claims you can't back up ('you will regret coming here'). Where appropriate, make it plain that it is your experience and where expressed, your opinion (e.g. 'we didn't enjoy our stay' or 'we were unhappy with x', 'we personally found y to be z', etc. rather than 'it's a disgusting hotel'). Basically read it through to check it's not unfairly defamatory in any way.

Once published, if he's as aggressive as he sounds, he might send a letter before action to scare you. They're cheap enough and his intention will be to warn you off. It is very, very unlikely he will take it further, and you would also be in a position to report his solicitors for unwarranted action (I forget the proper term for it).

NB: I am a layperson, not a legal expert. The best thing is to get proper advice if you're not sure. Something similar happened to me once and I took legal advice. Despite the fact I knew I was being honest, it was really stressful. Speaking to some solicitors helped allay my fears. The aggressive hotel owner is banking on you backing down to avoid hassle or stress or losing money in court. However pursuing a libel claim is extremely costly and this is why people only generally go after businesses, newspapers, or very wealthy individuals. Someone has to pay the lawyers.

Libel is an extremely complex area of law and it would be very stupid of him to try to sue you.

TatianaBis

You can

PS, the letter before action I received from the business I reviewed demanded that I write them an apology and state that my review had been untrue and that I would never say anything similar again. I didn't want the hassle but there was no way I was going to do that (it would basically have been signing away a whole load of my legal rights to speak honestly about them, even in person to friends). I ignored it and, predictably, absolutely nothing came of it. Once a year has passed since the review was written, they also legally can no longer pursue a defamation claim.

I know exactly where this place is by the photos. I used to live nearby and my SIL and her family stayed there when they came to visit. That was 5 years ago and it was pretty run down then...

I would like to see threatening to sue treated as a criminal offence if a law could be devised to cover this. It's a form of bullying- remember how Robert Maxwell would do this to silence critics, and look what he had been up to that was discovered after his death.

I stay in Devon very regularly, always in different places and I'm trying to work out which hotel this is so I can avoid it. I can't find a hotel with bad reviews and nasty responses from the owner.....there's a hour of my life I will never get back!

I searched hotel north devon with tennis court (if it can be called it).

You have probably seen it on your search without realising.

I would like to see threatening to sue treated as a criminal offence if a law could be devised to cover this

I'm not sure that would work. Sometimes it's the complainants who are in the wrong. Many complainants threaten to write bad reviews unless the business being complained about compensate them. That can be wrong too. It's blackmail.

" I can't find a hotel with bad reviews and nasty responses from the owner."

No, I didn't find that either.

I would like to see threatening to sue treated as a criminal offence if a law could be devised to cover this

I'm not sure that would work. Sometimes it's the complainants who are in the wrong. Many complainants threaten to write bad reviews unless the business being complained about compensate them. That can be wrong too. It's blackmail.

@LUZON

But if the plaintiff brings a malicious or unwarranted action as a means to intimidate? If this could be determined I think it would be fair.

I think this sort of thing is possibly already covered by the SRA (who regulate solicitors). A solicitor should not agree to write a letter before action if the details of the case don't genuinely warrant it. So possibly it's seen as the solicitor's responsibility to only pursue such a case if it's genuinely got merit. I'm sure this gets flouted all the time however. Most people on the receiving end probably can't be arsed reporting or aren't aware they can.

There seems to be a couple it could be. Really curious now!

Think I've found it, looks like 4/5 on Tripadvisor. The photos are old fashioned so I wouldn't have stayed there anyway but if you go further on there's lots of bad photos of the rooms not being maintained.

The owner is really aggressive in his response to the Trip Advisor comments. OP, I wouldn't worry - just go ahead and post. I had a bad experience in a restaurant and complained about the social distancing on Trip Advisor (also wrote to environmental health).

Wow his responses! What a defensive man.

You should definitely proceed - he won't sue.

.

Wow OP, he's been threatening people to get them to change their reviews for years! If your in Tripadvisor and click on the photo of the kettle on the bedside table with the extension cord it takes you to a rewritten review (2 star) that actually states that he was compelled to rewrite it by the owner. That was as far back as 2014. Shocking!

Still intrigued. What is the location or even better can't somebody just post the details?

If we name it here would it affect OP legally?

MN might remove the thread...

Could someone just put the initials?

TM

Correction, got it wrong about the relationship to the past genetically.

As you were 😄

Still all seems unpleasant in tho.