VAT private school requirement to give one terms notice to leave

[KHB]

We have four children who are educated in the private sector. When we did our sums prior to the VAT announcement we could just about cover the fees whilst making many sacrifices to enable us to afford it. We hoped the VAT would be introduced in September 2025, as did the schools we attend, giving us time to work out whether we could afford to continue and give notice to leave if required. Now this has been brought forward to January, the additional cost to us due to VAT is £8850 for this school year alone (spring and summer term 2025). We simply cannot afford this.

Our eldest is due to start senior school in a few weeks time at the start of September (year 9). This school is the most expensive of all the fees we pay. We have made the difficult decision to pull him out and move him to our local state school, who have been incredibly helpful in finding us a place last minute and even allowing us to look around the school during the holidays.

However we are left in the situation where the senior school we are leaving (before we have even started) insist that we pay a full terms fees for pulling our child out without giving the required one-terms notice. My view is that the immediate cost of school fees has increased beyond everyone's expectations, and it would be incredibly detrimental to our son's education and his mental health for him to attend for just one term before being forced to move to a different school. I have written to the bursar to ask him if he would exercise his discretion and consider waiving this requirement. However, I have received little sympathy.

I have heard that some schools are waiving the term's notice requirements to allow parents, like us, to move their children with immediate effect if they can no longer afford to continue paying their school fees. I would be interested to know how other parents have been treated? Does anyone know if there is any scope for legal action to fight the terms and conditions? I would be grateful for any positive contributions. Thank you.

Yabu I'm afraid.
VAT isn't being introduced till January so you theoretically could have your child attend for the autumn term that you are contractually obliged to pay for, giving notice any time before the first day of the September term, and then move to a state school after Christmas.

It's obvious why you don't want to do this and I am not saying you should, but it is your choice. A path exists where you don't pay a penny of VAT.

The school have not put up their fees. Their fees have remained the same, the government are imposing the tax. The school are as powerless as you and they have bills to pay and teachers salaries to pay and they can't just forgive you your contract because they won't be forgiven the contracts they have to spend that money on running the school, nor can they quickly recruit a new pupil between now and September to replace your child.

You have to pay the autumn term fees, untaxed. Surely as you were planning to pay a whole year of fees (untaxed) before the VAT news came through, you still have that money and are not goong to be unduly impoverished by its loss. It will be painful but its a commitment you made.

You knew VAT was likely to come in when you signed him up. In theory you could do the first term VAT free then move him (realise all sorts of reasons not to do that) but then you'd get what you paid for. You signed a contract and need to stick to it.

It isn’t force majeure. This is not some event beyond the contemplation of the parties that stops compliance with the contract being possible.

please tell me you are not a lawyer.

You were paying under 45k for 4 lots of fees? Where??

It is actually really cheap and easy to enforce debts in the U.K. Especially as debt as clear cut as this one. The OP will pay as the OP will not want to risk a county court judgment.

You were going to pay £60 000 for those two terms?

It’s not a drop in the ocean… that implies it’s an inconsequential or indeterminate amount. It’s literally 20% of her school bill, it’s a lot of money. You have no idea what her other outgoings look
like to determine whether that’s a “drop in the ocean” or not.

People need to stop assuming private school parents have an endless supply of cash. If there was an income tax rise tomorrow and an average middle class family had to find an extra £9k of tax every single year there would be outrage.

why are you surprised? It is always a full terms notice and you can’t say you didn’t know that you were going to get a labour government who promised to do just that.
Pay the term’s fees, send the kid to state school in September and move on.

This isn't the place to ask OP. So many will happily stick the boot in. No one knows what exactly your school will do and you need proper legal advice.

Exactly. It's a very easy target.

This could not be more wrong legally if it tried

Schools take parents to court for failure to give notice / pay fees ALL the time. And they always win. And the parents pay their legal costs on top.

Labour were always going to do this and parents should have prepared accordingly. Let's face it toucan always retract a terms notice if needs be unless it's a very oversubscribed school, There were a few threads telling people just to apply for a state school place anyway, a number of posters were aghast that anyone would do this but actually it was the best and sensible thing to do for some to give them another option.

That said I do think it's very unfair that parents will have to pay a terms fees because the rise is starting in Jan. They should have said Sept 25 IMO however this is Labour (wait for the tax rises in the Autumn).

You've got 2 choices, leave and pay or leave and don't and hope they don't take you to court or there is a challenge and it's ruled it was unfair.

You are not needing to pay for the state school, so you are only paying for fees for one term rather than three for ds, although frustrating for you that you cannot use it. Going forward you will be saving those fees every term. Either way you are paying X amount of money and your ds is getting an education, you just happen to be paying the money to one school and getting the education from another. You are no worse off than before making the decision to move him.

Your younger dc might also get priority with a sibling in the school so I would apply for any who are secondary age to join him. You will save a lot of money in the long term.

Friends pulled their child out of private school because of bullying. School broke various duties of care etc and their DC suffered serious MH problems however school insisted they still pay terms fees. They are taking them to court.

I would write to the headmistress and governors and explain the situation, it’s at their discretion however I imagine many more schools will be struggling financially going forwards due to the impact of VAT.

Paying a term and not using it is cheaper than paying several years of fees. He needs to start his new school in Sept - better for him but also you will lose his place if you delay.
We have this happen in 6th form - kids apply for grammars but won’t know places in time to give 1 term notice at their privates - but worth losing 1 terms fees to save five terms fees.

It can't be an unfair contract term. Parents sign up to these things knowing that fees may rise, and the reality is for OP that, if this had been the only school she was paying for, she would probably have sucked up the fee increase. It's not the school's fault that she has three other children in private schools, and the VAT thing is not the school's fault either. Plus we've known for a long time what Labour were likely to do, and that they were highly likely to get in at the last election, so the simple fact that this family were gambling on a bit more delay before the VAT kicked in again doesn't make this an unfair term.

It couldn't possibly cost more than a term's fees. OP would have no defence, so it's a simple matter of issuing proceedings and applying for judgment. OP would have to pay some of the costs on top as well.

People need to stop assuming private school parents have an endless supply of cash. If there was an income tax rise tomorrow and an average middle class family had to find an extra £9k of tax every single year there would be outrage.

How in earth is that an equivalent?

But the ‘contract’ has now changed without giving the Parents a Terms notice.

OP is not going to have to pay an extra £9k though.

OP has signed up to pay £66,375 per year to this school (that's the original pre-VAT bill that would have been due in any case if the Tories had won the election) - I have calculated that from OP's statement that the additional cost to us due to VAT is £8850 for this school year alone (spring and summer term 2025)

The new government policy puts that up from £66,375 to £75,225 with the addition of £8,850 tax.

The contract the OP signed was that a minimum of £22,125 is due in any case if notice otherwise isn't given by the first day of the previous term (mid April some time). So OP must pay £22,125. Of course OP has the money and can afford it. They had already committed to paying £66,375. OP is making a saving of £44,250 by backing out. That's twice as much as many people earn in a year as extra spending money that OP wasn't expecting to have.

OP instead wants to pay zero pounds and keep the full £66,375 extra spending money and let the school deal with the massive black hole in their balance sheet with all their teachers salaries to pay (or redundancy noticice) but no fee funds to pay those obligations with. Why? In what other sphere of operations would any organisation facing a rocky financial landscape be expected to release their debtors from legitimate contracts and thus impoverish themselves and jeopardise their financial viability?

Of course the school will enforce the debt. They are well practiced in this. Every private school in the country has to deal with a CF parent like OP most summers. Changing your mind about a school in July/August happens regularly and they deal with it the same every time when someone thinks the contract they signed shouldn't actually be considered binding. The contract will be enforced, with a CCJ against the OP if necessary.

Surely the parents have had more than a term's notice as the change doesn't come into effect till January.

Nothing is changing until January 2025 - a whole term plus 1.5 lots of school hols away.

Plenty of notice.

The contract hasn’t changed. The amount due starting January had changed. The contract remains the same.

Absolute nonsense.

They have budgeted for the fee for the entire academic year, just not the fee plus 20%. By giving notice now, they only owe 33% of a year's fees. Any family whose finances are so precarious that they haven't got next term's fees available already, shouldn't be privately educating. If they can't afford the increase from January, now is the time to give notice and avoid the increase.