Sued for school fees after three years

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Around three years ago I removed my child from a fee paying school(child was on a half scholarship) following an argument with the school about poor teaching and bullying. I refused to pay the fees for the notice term as it had been made impossible for my child to continue there. I wrote a letter asking the school to waive the fees as we were out of pocket having to pay full fees and a deposit for a new school. I heard no more about it and assumed they did not want to risk a court case and the ensuing negative publicity. I recently received a letter from a debt collection agency demanding the full amount or they would take legal action. I would be prepared to defend myself in court but destroyed all the correspondence with the school about a year ago and don't know whether the court would accept verbal evidence only. I don't have any witnesses willing to identify themselves in court. What should I do?

You can write to the school requesting copies of all correspondence and of your son's file. You are entitled to this and they should not have destroyed it.

I think the OP is saying that she destroyed all her correspondence with the school.

I can't really advise but am not surprised they are pursuing it given that you didn't hear anything in response to your letter asking them to waive the fees. Depending on the outstanding amount, I imagine it will cost you more to go to court than it will to settle up, TBH. Legally, I don't think you'd have a strong case: it will be argued that when you enrolled your child in the school, you agreed to the notice period and they did not agree to waive this - thus they are within their rights to pursue it.

What steps did you take before removing your child? If it can be proved that you gave the school ample time to resolve the situation and they did not, and that you took your case to the governors and they also failed to act, you may be able to make a case perhaps.

Thank you for your comments. There are a few twists in the story. Firstly I feel they effectively gave us no option but to leave by giving us a terms notice of the scholarship ending - knowing we could not afford to pay full fees. They made it clear that if there was any more "trouble" i.e. that we complained during the notice term, we would have to remove our child straight away - we felt this was not only humiliating but practically impossible to fulfil.

Secondly, the school is very small and operated by a sole trader. Until these incidents we had been friends and we had socialised and attended her wedding etc. Therefore I thought that when we had no reply to the fee waiver letter that she did not want to pursue matters because of our previous friendship but did not want to give me a victory in the argument. While I know that debts can be pursued for at least 6 years, it never occured to me that they would start proceedings after 3. We have had absolutely no contact, no bills or reminders, nothing during the period.

a debt collection agency is not a court hearing. It is their accounts dept being asked to justify the loss in that period. I would not be bothered about it at all. I would write to the debt collection agency saying you formally dispute the amount and to refer it back to the school for investigation. Then, if they chose to discuss court, tell them you would be happy to go to court, and also to the papers with your story. See how they react to that. I expect they will close the file.

A debt collection referal will not show on your credit report either, its just a bunch of people being paid to chase you on their behalf. They have no legal standing.

I agree with Pavlov.

I would imagine the background to this is that as a small private operation, and in the current economic climate, the school is probably struggling to stay afloat. This is the case with many private schools, even bigger and more well known ones - unless the school has a big Foundation and oodles of land and property, they often operate with a very small financial buffer. The owner may be at risk of going under and is desperately calling in old debts. The prospect of going to court, and dealing with bad publicity is probably enough to shut them up.