Annoying holiday rental problem what are our legal rights?

[theoriginalandbestrookie]

Last November we booked flights to go to Tenerife in the Scottish October break.

I had a specific place that we wanted to stay in and managed to get a very good price through a couple who were renting privately. We paid a £50 deposit through paypal and then as the balance was due by 18th August I paid that by paypal.

I have just been phoned by the lady to say that they are not able to get that week through their time share and would I like to use their apartment in Murcia instead . There is a possibility that they can obtain an apartment in the complex we want but it is dependant on other time share owners not using their allocation. She has offered to refund our money.

My question is what are our rights? We are very specific about where we want to stay and this place is available to rent through general holiday websites but at a much higher price than we paid through them. We haven't got a contract as that was due to be issued when we paid the final balance but I have got email confirmation that the apartment was booked for that week - which as it turned out it was not.

I just want to go on holiday to the place that we had already booked at the price we had agreed - can we make them pay the difference.

You do have a contract - an oral one. They have breached it. You can either ask them to pay the difference or refund you the cost of the flights. However you do have a duty to mitigate your loss, so you can't just go and book the same place at any price (you should look for lowest possible).

Thanks boondoggle. I think it is a genuine accident on their part and to get the equivalent is double what we paid.

I was therefore thinking of offering to change it to a one bedroom apartment rather than the two bed we thought we had which costs roughly what we paid to them but with some recompense for the inconvenience. Does that sound reasonable do you think?

Harsh as it seems, I would go in by pointing out that:

1. you had a binding contract on agreed terms (the contract may be oral or written, or both, depending on how you used email/phone to arrange things)

1. in reliance upon those terms, you booked your flights;

1. you want to go to that location and not Malta or anywhere else;

1. other accommodation of the same type (i.e. 2 bed flat) in that area is twice the price at the dates you have booked flights for (give links to actual examples);

1. you would like them to rent you their apartment as agreed, but if not, you will have to book another apartment in the area and contractually, they are bound to compensate you the difference in price. [If you were to be in court over this - which obviously you won't be, but just so you know the bottom line - in a contract claim like this, the object is to put the innocent party in the same position you would be in had the contract been properly performed.];

1. In recognition of the plight they find themselves in - but without any waiver of your rights in connection with their conduct - you would be happy to settle the matter for [INSERT PRICE YOU REQUIRE FROM THEM TO MAKE UP SOME OF THE DIFFERENCE].

If you just start off saying you are prepared to go one bedroom rather than two, it sounds as though you don't think you have a very good claim when actually, on the facts you've given here, you do. They were bloody stupid trying to sub-let a week in a timeshare before they'd even got it confirmed that they had that week, and if I were you I'd be holding them to the full amount.

That's exactly what my DH said - I must be too soft !
Thanks very much for your help.

Yay - just got a call from them, they have managed to get the 2 bed apartment for us, thank goodness as I didn't have the heart to go through a lot of unpleasantness whereas DH seemed to be looking forward to it!

I did suggest to her nicely that she may wish to make sure that future bookings are water tight as we could have made them pay the difference, but I'm not sure how much of it was taken on board.

I am pleased as they are an older couple and were just being a bit naive I think and I would have hated to take money off them as I think they are subletting to cover the massive admin fees that the timeshare company charges (too soft by half me)