Mum told me on the day of tutoring that there is no more tutoring

[Thatyachtmusicsong]

Can anyone help please?

I do private tutoring and have tutored one student twice per week for three years.
She has had some health issues and we changed from tutoring at her home to online 6 or so months ago.
We tutored over summer until the last few weeks of August when she said she was taking a breaj for summer and would tutor again as always in September.
Today I messaged in the morning checking that all was okay for tutoring in the evening and the mum told me that they decided to take her out of school and have signed up to an online school.
The mum said she doesn't know about the future and how things will go and she would take a pause for our tutoring as it may be too much for her.
I feel sad for her and understand the situation, but this has come as a real shock to me as we rely on those lessons financially. I had done tje planning for September and feel shocked they only let me know on the day of tutoring, which leaves me no time to find something else.

Stupidly, I don't have a contract.

What would you do about this situation?

Would it be fair to ask for a months payment since I had no notice etc?

Feel like I've really been left in the lurch

Ask politely if they’d give a testimonial but in the meantime get online and advertise your services. Common entrance/11+ are all coming up and if you live in an area where kids go private you will I’m sure get bookings. Or GCSE students. Just start marketing asap and get a decent contract in place for all new students.

OP it’s more the case that losing one student (who gave you two hours of income a week) should not cause you financial hardship over either the short or long-term. If the loss of just one student is this significant then you need to be taking on ever so slightly more students than you think you do to buffer against the times when you have a shortfall (like this). Therefore, when one student drops out or discontinues, you do not suffer financially.

Tutoring is incredibly unpredictable has huge variances. Kids stop and start all the time and actually a student employing your services over the period of many years is less common than people hiring tutors for short periods/several months. You really need to expect/prepare for students dropping out frequently. This is the nature of the business and entirely unextraordinary. It happens every day to every instructor or tutor.

In order to not feel such a financial shock in the future you need to take on more students initially, draw up contracts, ask for retainers or up-front payments for a bulk block of lesson sessions or have clear notice periods.

And you think it’s ok to only give Op a few hours notice and only when Op contacted them? This is really poor form. Someone is completely unaware of social norms.

Thank you, you are so right x

I wonder is your shock (apparent in your posts) more because your relationship blurred into a personal one. Whereas for the family, while it was nice for them to have a caring tutor, it probably wasn't very different to having a thorough cleaner or a friendly mobile hairdresser. You were ultimately providing a service and when that service was no longer required, you were let go.
That said, I think they should pay you for today at least and I think they very probably will do so.

My local Facebook pages are full of people looking for tutors this week. You will find more kids to teach although perhaps not as convenient as this child was for you.

I think that potentially, social norms go out of the window when the parents are living in crisis mode. Despite them being (or appearing to be) wealthy, they have stressful full on jobs and child too sick to go to school. What they did isn’t ok on the face of it - but clearly they are in a shitty situation. As is the OP now. OP says the mum is disorganised, but I should think that she is probably so stressed and busy with far too much going on that she hasn’t got time to be organised and like I say, living in crisis mode.

I think what you’ve done is fine. I really can’t see them bad mouthing you as another post said. Obviously if they reply saying no or don’t reply you just have to drop it. Best of luck finding more work.

Yes I think you're right. I'm very stressed about the money, but also a bit upset about the way its been dealt with. As a teacher/tutor you do get invested and care about the students (well I do) especially since she's been through a lot. I don't have this with other families, I obviously care about the children and the parents are great

Another tutor here who initially didn’t have contacts and learned the hard way! You’d think that people would be polite and thoughtful, but a lot really aren’t! Chalk this up to experience and fill the space asap.

Thank you x

Good thing for you is this is literally the second best time of the year (the first being after the Year 11 final mock exams) to grab new students as a tutor! Just spend a few hours this weekend advertising your services on some local pages or on social media or ask previous customers or friends/family of yours to recommend you if anyone is looking for a tutor. Don’t get attached to any student. The average person cancels services, hairdressers, subscriptions, frequent nail appointments, milk deliveries etc. all the time. This is exactly the same. It’s a casual service. Just take on more students!

I agree tbh. I can only imagine their reaction right now. But I get it if you need the money it’s worth the punt I guess, I’m pretty confident you’ve just burned any bridges of them coming back to you though

5K is what she will get at best, plus a heart attack with all the nerves. Also, the debtor will pay for enforcement? What is the incentive to do it? Like the debtor will hire bailiffs? And pay them to recover money from the debtor?

Exaggerating just makes your post look silly. It does not have to cause a heart attack. Most cases don’t get to the point of needing bailiffs, but yes, if they are needed, the fee for enforcement can be added to the debt. The debtor doesn’t hire bailiffs, you clearly don’t understand how money is recovered - the debtor is the party who owes money.

I’m a bit surprised you relied on one student for your income. Surely you realised it would come to an end at some point? Even if you had emailed earlier to confirm the lessons were to continue it wouldn’t have helped you as you would still be out of pocket. All you can do is learn from this and take the very good advice given by some posters.

There is a verbal contract though!!!! If you took them to small claims that would count!

She gave you 2 hours notice! That in itself any normal person knows you have to give a minimum of 24 hours notice! Whether it’s for nails/hair/car etc EVERY person who you make an appointment with expects at least 24 if not 48 hours notice if you aren’t going to turn up! If it’s a long term thing and been going on for 3 years then I would point out to them you have a verbal contract and bill them for the months tutoring in leu of notice! Don’t say I know we don’t have a contract because you DO!!! A verbal one!!

How does a verbal contract work though?

He's not replied. I did text fairly late now. Feel sick as not sure was the right thing.

Oh to win the lottery or have no money issues

She can’t bill for months of tutoring, it isn’t reasonable, otherwise no-one would ever be able to terminate services. It is up to the tutor to check the client wants to continue and that should be done in writing but, as I said upthread, even if she had done it a month ago she would still be out of work and out of pocket. It wouldn’t change her current situation. OP needs to get more students.

Tutor here. Par for the course. Ninety percent of my clients were decent and honourable. Ten percent would fit into the category of the one that's pulled the plug on you, and I've had a lot worse. A lot.

Would respectfully point out that it's probably not good to 'rely on' the income from one family. Things like this can happen any time.

People aren’t reading the thread properly and are conflating the fact that the mother told you today that the tutoring is paused going forwards with the fact you had a previously agreed break period for the summer with an agreement to resume tutoring with them today.

If I were this family and I had the money, I would certainly compensate you for your time for the week’s sessions, and probably a bit more for the inconvenience. I’d recognise, despite us not having a contract, that I hadn’t treated you well and potentially put you in a difficult position.

As others have said, you must have contracts going forwards. I hope you get sorted soon.

I agree with @Nearly50omg, people are wrong in saying you had no contract. A verbal contract is just as binding as a written one, but of course it is subject to the problem of limited evidence of its existence and precise terms. However, you clearly had a contract under which you agreed to provide tuition at certain times and also that covered things like the subjects you would teach, any teaching materials you would provide, and that you would provide tuition at an appropriate standard for your pupil. In return, the parents had an obligation to pay your agreed rate for the tuition. Your course of conduct would give evidence about other implied terms, e.g. about reporting back to the parents, payment arrangements etc.

I suspect you would stand an excellent chance of arguing that you were entitled to reasonable notice of cancellation - which might not be as much notice as you would have asked for in a written contract, but would certainly be more than two hours' notice. If you had any sort of arrangement whereby it as agreed that, for instance, if either side needed to cancel a lesson or move it, they would give a certain amount of notice, then that notice period might be appropriate for ending the contract. Alternatively, the most likely implied notice period would be the period between lessons.

The difficulty of course is that it could be risky taking this to court if the parents decided to fight, though if you represented yourself you would have little to lose. The measure of your loss would be limited but I would have thought it would have equated to something like what you would have earned over a reasonable notice period.

Honesly OP don't bother going down this route. Some of the replies you have received are very OTT. Have you declared every penny, every family has paid you? Are you fully up to date with your tax returns? Because trying to wrangle a month's payment out of this family may end up costing you far more than this otherwise. Add to that the stress involved and the damage to your reputation, esp as a local tutor.

I'd be very surprised if the family don't pay you for today at least. Advertise. Take more students.

Thank you, this is how I feel and would also do the same (if I had the money)

Tutoring is a bit of extra money on the side.

It's this sort of misinformed attitude that creates a lot of problems for tutors. I'm a self-employed private tutor and 100% of my income is from private tuition. I'm also the sole earner for my household (lone parent, have been for over a decade, DCs' father nowhere to be seen, currently single-handedly paying rent on two student houses as both DC are currently studying). I earn well over £80K a year, so a hell of a lot more than "a bit of extra money on the side".

My Ts and Cs are very clear and very rigorously enforced by me. I have a waiting list and can (and do) replace clients who persistently break the terms. It doesn't stop some clients trying to treat me like the little woman earning pin money while the imaginary man of the house earns the proper money. So utterly ignorant.

And for the record, I declare every penny.

I only sent one text. If they ignore or say no, i'll leave it there, but wouldn't work with them again (if they wanted to)
I definitely don't think they'd bad mouth me as I don't feel I've done anything wrong