Please send me your advice - unable to pay private school fees

[amy676]

Hi everyone!

I hope someone can help with advice. My two children were attending private school up until before the summer term when I took them out as I can no longer afford to pay due to personal circumstances. The children don't attend the school anymore but I have been getting letters demanding payment of up to £10K but I did explain my situation to the school and my intention to take them out in March 2022 but they said I should have given them written notice and not just verbally and now keep asking for payment.

What would happen as I don't have means to pay what would the school do and what action could they take against me as I'm worried. Please do kindly advise.

Thanks, Amy

Not in UK but I do work in a private school and drastic change of circumstances is often taken into account. OP needs help in makin her circumstances and how they changed more clear

You need legal advice before contacting the school again.

I don't see much value to them in pursuing this debt as you are on statutory sick pay and cannot pay. I would send them evidence of your current financial situation and the fact you applied for a loan but were rejected. Really you have done the school a favour by moving your children when you could no longer pay, I hope the transition to the new school goes well.

You should have given the notice in writing. However, if the school has basically confirmed (in writing) that they acknowledge that they did know your children were leaving, this may help you (but it's not guaranteed).

I think it would be advisable to talk to a solicitor about your best course of action, or a debt service (one of the free ones), CAB, or indeed all three, because your options include:

• trying to negotiate directly with the school to pay this off over a long period of time (but it seems you might not be able to pay anything at all at the moment, so this might be a non-starter, although if they deny your request that could count against them later, depends)
• waiting for it to get to court, and then, if found against you, you can either pay the CCJ within 30 days (yes, I know you can't but that is one of the general options) and it never appears on your credit file, or pay in the instalments that the court decides you can afford and have the CCJ registered on your credit file
• get help from a debt service to deal with all your debts and expenses, which will help you to make sure your priority debts (rent, mortgage, council tax, utilities) get paid and help you to negotiate with the school and other organisations for reasonable payment plans
• I'm not up to date with the latest on individual voluntary arrangements or indeed bankruptcy options, but there will be some other options that experts can go through with you, depending how bad your situation is overall and how long it goes on, whether you have equity in property, etc. etc. etc.

They all have pros and cons and the above is only an idea of some possible options not a definitive and accurate account, which is why I think you need professional advice. Don't panic though, bailiffs can't be sent in before any court judgement against you and only then if you haven't stuck to a repayment plan. (Sometimes debt collectors attend before any court action has happened, they have no rights to anything and can be politely told to go away, because the matter is in dispute and has not reached court.)

The one thing you shouldn't do is absolutely nothing, as that will make matters worse.

They didn’t take action for over a year. I came home from a lovely day out with my DC to find a vicious letter from a debt collection agency threatening me with all sorts.

I wrote straight back basically explaining what went on and why I thought I was not liable for the debt.

I got little response other than threatening a home visit (from the debt management agency) and some crap saying the court would not listen to me blah blah.

I said I was very happy for the whole story to come out and would invite the press ( I have 2 cousins who are journos on national newspapers, though I would never have involved them).

This went on for about 4 or 5 months. Basically threatening phone calls which I blocked and letters. If they had actually gone to court I would have tried to negotiate a long term payment arrangement.

I think the school dropped it because they weren’t going to take the chance of their name being smeared and quite probably losing.

In your case I would push your arguments that you gave adequate notice and you thought that due to your illness the school had granted you a period, knowing you were not in a position to pay fees. I think if you can sow enough doubt that they won’t pursue it to court if they think they will lose.

Sorry, the thread has moved on a bit but I hope much of what I wrote is still useful. I agree with the person who said to get advice before you have any further communication with the school, definitely, as you may make things worse for yourself by mistake.

One thing a solicitor or other professional should be able to do is to have a look at the contract and the correspondence and see if there is any room for manouvre there, e.g. if the school haven't given enough notice of the rise in fees, that sort of thing. Sometimes there is a little loophole to be exploited when they haven't followed the contract to the letter themselves.

Anyway the main thing is make sure you have a roof, you can eat, you can pay your priority bills, as there are mechanisms for dealing with the other debts.

Did you actually owe the money? If so, why would you have considered a smear campaign?!

There is no legal aid for matters such as these . . .

Yes of course it would. You've breached your contract and owe them £10k.

I'm sorry to be blunt.

I’m also a lawyer but a Scottish one.

equitable estoppel isn’t a thing in Scottish law. I agree though that they are being a bit sharp. We have a similar concept - called personal bar - which may well be relevant. There is a lot of case law around notices and when they must be formal and it can get quite complicated though. In this case there is probably a decent argument that notice should start from when you gave the verbal notice. However I’m unclear whether you gave the requisite amount of notice.

You must not just not pay. If you do that they may sue you. Contrary to what is stated above it would not be a small claim - it would be the much more formal ordinary cause and for a £10k claim it wouldn’t be cost effective to run these arguments (around personal bar and formality of notice) which would be quite complex and require evidence. It probably wouldn’t be cost effective for them either but the bigger risk that they sue is for you.

Speak to the finance director as you have suggested, try to get them to agree the shortest period possible based on the date you actually gave notice to the principal and agree a payment plan.

The alternative is to declare bankruptcy but you must get advice from a qualified insolvency practitioner (or a CAB) first especially if you own your own home. Note that if they sue you and you do nothing or lose they could also make you bankrupt if the debt is over £10,000

@Johnnysgirl

They said I did. I said I didn’t.

I think it’s quite likely they’ll drop it if you write them an emotive letter, with lots of references to you hope they wouldn’t treat parents like this. Long Covid is awful and a good excuse to be late with paperwork. You should lay it on THICK though. And be very clear you really can’t pay.

Get advice from the CAB or a solicitor on where you stand legally before you write - in fact it’s usually better if they write it for you, but you need to add plenty of emotion.

If that doesn’t work, I would tell them you will go to the local papers, who will lap it up. It’s terrible publicity for them so they won’t want that.

If the worst comes to the worst you will agree a small monthly payment through a government mediation service, and after about 5 years the rest will be written off.

Private Schools are businesses.

If the contract says it should have been in writing then that’s what you should have done. If they won’t do the goodwill thing then I guess you have to pay up. I feel for you because I think it’s an easy thing to overlook if you’re Ill and I bet many have been caught out like this.

I don't think emotion really swings the balance in a court of law. If it gets that far.

This is also sometimes a valid strategy but bear in mind debts can usually be pursued for 5 years.

Thank you for your message as its good to get an opinion as a you are lawyer whose in Scotland. I have reached out to the finance manager and really hope that she replies to my email. The only thing I have as evidence is an email sent form the finance manager saying that the principal has taken my verbal conversation as 'official notice' up until March 2022. Other than that I am not sure what they will say.

I actually do feel very emotional about this as I have so much to think about the kids, trying to get better, desperately wanting ot go back to work but deemed unfit due to long covid its just awful and then this on my plate.

Do you think they might even consider giving me 5 years if they really want me to pay up (even though there's no way I can afford to at the moment)

@WeIoveyouMissHannigan they are businesses?So why do they have charitable status which means they cannot operate for profit.

So many parents must have faced this problem during the pandemic. Awful.

Op, you have my every sympathy. Does the school have a waiting list at all? If it does, could you claim they will not have actually suffered any loss regardless?

Thank you for your kind message it means alot during this time.

I agree with this (assuming the governing law of the contract is English, Scottish law may have some differences).

If you don't want to get bogged down in researching the various estoppels then you can simply say that they have waived their right to request written notice by accepting your verbal notice. You could also argue that their acceptance of your verbal notice constitutes a variation by conduct to the original agreement, so written notice was no longer required.

And remember that you are a consumer here and so get the benefit of consumer protection laws. You could argue that their requirement for written notice, when they've already had verbal notice, constitutes an unfair term and is therefore unenforceable. The CMA are quite hot on unfair cancellation terms in consumer contracts, you can say that you will refer the case to them.

Lots of different paths to challenge this. Ignore the posters telling you to just pay up.

Don't pay.

Let them chase you.

With no work/income they're not going to get anything back anyway.

If they really push( they won't) you can go into a protected trust deed.

Thank you for your message and kind advice. I am awaiting to see whether the finance manager will reply to my email and I hope she considers my points as the principal certainly is not even responding. I could also mention about waiving it due to the fact that she was the one who stated that the verbal notice was taken as 'official notice'. I just pray they can consider my situation.

Make a plea to the bursar. Offer to be transparent with your finances etc.

Ah had not rtft, I can see you’ve done this. This should help