To expect MoH to refund hen accommodation after we were refused access?

[Hennightmare]

I attended a hen party at the weekend - Friday to Sunday, staying close to a seaside resort in a private accommodation. I paid my share in advance - nearly £300.

Upon arrival, we were greeted by the owner who refused entry on the basis that hen parties (and same sex groups/stags) are not allowed and this is stated in the booking terms and conditions and elsewhere on the website. Despite reasoning, the owner was not backing down, and said there’d been an incident with a same sex group two weekends ago which required costly repairs.

MoH said she was aware of other hens who had stayed and this is how she found the place on instagram. She was told no refund would be given as there wouldn’t be time to let it again for the weekend.

We managed to find budget hotel rooms in the area but this scuppered the plans which were in place for the house - games etc.

I have looked myself and it is prominent on the website about the rules around hen parties etc. It is clear there has been inconsistent approaches in the past though.

Should the MoH cover us for her mistake? I am out of pocket after the hotel booking.

YABU - suck it up, it happened
YANBU - her mistake, she should offer to cover it

Agreed, we booked an Airbnb last year and we could only reserve the dates which then had to be confirmed by the owners after we had contacted them with a, who were were and what we were doing up their type message. The property was in the owners back garden so they obviously didn’t want noisy guests!

This. The owner is taking the mickey. They can't keep your money when they've refused to let you stay.

I'd also want to know if they changed the terms after the MoH booked.

I can imagine those groups possibly turned up as just a couple of people and not the whole gang as such so the owner would have not had a clue it was a big single sex group. I have just spent the weekend in a group of 11 in a hired place though we were on the drive in our motorhome. People turned up in ones and twos and all turned up at slightly different times, with one arriving another day due to work commitments,

As it’s in the T&C then just forget it.

No but you don't get to keep money when you didn't provide the service!

If the group hadn't turned up that would be one thing, but they did turn up and they decided not to let them in. Nice work if you can get it - take bookings, refuse entry and keep the money? Yeah right.

But it sounds as though the MoH booked despite knowing the T&C’s said no hen parties. How’s that on the owner? They shouldn’t have to lose £3000 because the MOH was trying it on!!

@Hennightmare I'm in two minds over this. Was there any reference on the booking site that groups of hens HAD been allowed to stay?

Could you not have said you were a group of cousins??

The MoH should challenge the owner over sex discrimination as they're not actually allowed to ban groups due to being all one gender (UK Equality law 2010) and ask for a full refund. She should spend some time carefully wording an email to the owner and insisting on a refund so she can refund you all.

I think the owner was out of order here and should have let you stay, then could have sued the MoH if you made any damage that affected subsequent bookings.

I agree if it's very prominent in the terms that's one thing but I still wouldn't' expect them to simply take the money. Refusing a booking is one thing. Refusing entry is also ok. But you can't keep the money whatever the terms say - terms have to be fair under the Consumer Right Act and that isn't. The CMA has actually recently updated its guidance on unfair terms. OP, it would be worth you reading it and looking to see if there are any examples like this that the MoH can use with the owner.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/unfair-contract-terms-cma37

For example " terms may be unfair if they have the object or effect of:
(e) requiring any consumer who fails to fulfil his obligation to pay a disproportionately high sum in compensation."

Just not true. If you were to suddenly decide for example you did not need the hotel room and the service was not provided, you would not be entitled to a refund. If you have breached a clear term of the booking similarly you would not get a refund. You could revisit the terms and see a) how long they have been for and if they did change recently, or you might have an argument if they are not clear. However, on most of the bookings I have made, the terms are very clear and are often on page one. Prior groups would have turned up discreetly in ones or twos. If you turn up mob handed clearly intent on having one hell of a party then you have been very obvious.

Raise some queries with the host by all means, but I would not be very hopeful that you have any case in law.

It is really annoying, but i would not expect MoH to pay thousands to resolve even if it was her error.

I also wouldnt bother bride with this, likely she feels terrible about it already.

Annoying yes, lessons learned by everyone i expect. But that would be end of it for me. I would assure bride I had a lovely weekend and hope she did too.

Assuming the rule was in place at the time of booking then, yes, it's the MOH fault and I'd be furious at her. But she's unlikely to have £3k to refund everyone. Not sure why people are so mad at the property owner. No stags or hens is a very common rule, regardless of where the property is. They don't owe anyone a refund if the MOH chose to ignore the Ts and Cs.

Surely that can be just as bad! I've seen a friends kid rip a cupboard door off in a caravan by swinGing on it.

Its a bit crappy to assume that a single sex booking will cause issues! House parties are mixed sex and places can get trashed. Really as long as everyone on the booking is over 18 they can be pursued for damages.

I'm still trying to work out what MoH stands for - Mother of Hen?

But that's not what happened if you care to read the OPs posts.

The house was booked months ago. When the group arrived they were told that Hen groups were no longer allowed because a group, two weeks prior, had caused damage.

The owner should have contacted the MoH to ask what the group was and refunded.

Matron of Honour

how did the owner know it was a hen party?

Absolutely terrible of the owner not to let them stay and keep the money!

But two weeks prior to arriving there had been a hen party.

Should she take out a loan for it? How would she come up with the money? I’d guess some people would expect her to do it but personally I’d say ffs and not expect her to be potentially financially screwed for a few months because something she went through the trouble of organising didn’t happen

That doesn't mean that the owner knew it was a hen party until they had turned up and trashed the place. The rule could have been in place, but they were sneakier than the OP's group and arrived in small groups to make it less obvious that it was a hen do.

I have seen this “no hens or stags” clause many times when booking accommodation.

MoH has fucked up massively. I don’t think you can make her pay though.

Did you not look at the accommodation yourself once you knew about it?

Option 1. There was not a rule in place at the time of the booking and this condition had been added following the incident two weeks prior. Seems a reasonable conclusion from the evidence given - but then very easily proven by the MoH providing the booking confirmation email.

Option 2. There was a rule, and as several posters have suggested, the owners of the place didn't know the last group were a stag/hen as they turned up separately (or weren't met which let's face it is normal for AirB&Bs) or whatever. They just quoted that example at the time but the rule was already there.

the state of the website on the day the OP checked isn't relevant at all. It's only relevant what it was like on the date it was booked (which you could potentially check with wayback but dunno if it would work on a site like that)

the booking confirmation email is everything IMO. Either it means the place has to refund, or it means the MoH booked an inappropriate venue and (I think) should try and refund the individuals. I mean had she booked everyone into a kennels I doubt anyone would disagree that she's responsible for refunding.

But then the MOH shouldn't have taken the risk of the landlord finding out they were a same sex, hen group. Or at least not without consulting the people paying for the weekend.

What's the difference between a hen party and a group of female friends having a break together?

Someone mentioned York as a renowned place for hen dos.
If you go there, you’ll very quickly see theres a huge difference between a group of women and a hen do.
lots of behaviours you’d never see with just a group of women

The best I’ve seen was the group having booked a striptease to happen in a pub - the guy turned up in a fireman ‘uniform’
Lots of obnoxious behaviours, lots of alcohol, no care for anyone around them etc etc….

You can look at the website history on a website like this one
Archives

Look for the date tge MoH booked the house and see if you can find the T&C

I would get my money back from the venue. I believe there is a complaints process to be followed. This notice about no hen parties may be fairly recent. They are relying on you to just let it go.

I agree that it hangs on whether the booking conditions have changed since the booking was made and from the evidence the OP has there is no way to be certain about that. But if I had to hazard a guess I'd say it is unlikely.
The "no single sex groups" rule is really common in larger self catering units. (Some people seem to have missed that from the OP, it's not just a ban on hen parties, so pretending to be cousins or whatever wouldn't have helped anyway.) The MoH doesn't seem to be claiming that there has been a change in the Ts&Cs and the fact that she claims not to have the booking form seems a bit suspicious. If I had been duped by someone who had changed their Ts & Cs since booking and not informed me I would be kicking up a huge stink rather than trying to brush it under the carpet. I suspect she knew perfectly well that she was going against the booking conditions but had seen that others had got away with it and decided to take the risk. Rather than the incident 2 weeks ago having prompted a change in the rules it probably made the owner more diligent about enforcing them.
I don't think the owners can be blamed at all if the conditions were clear at the time of booking. It isn't their responsibility to do an ID check on every guest before accepting a booking. If you state no single sex groups you're entitled to expect guests to abide by that and to turn single sex groups away, just like if someone brought dogs to a property where pets weren't allowed or were found smoking in a non smoking property. The booker will have signed an agreement and if they then break that agreement surely it is their responsibility, not that of the owner. Why should the owner lose money because the booker lied?
It sounds to me that this is the responsibility of the MoH and morally at least she should offer to refund her friends as much as she can afford. Assuming that is that the others didn't know, though I have to say I'm surprised nobody else had scrutinised the website. Unless they can show that the owner changed the rules after the booking was made I would say the fault lies squarely with the person/s responsible for making the booking.