School Exit Fees - Are these legal?

[pigsinbutter]

I signed my son up to an online private sixth form school. He had dropped out of sixth form. He has recently been diagnosed with AuDHD, with pathological demand avoidance. This seemed like a good solution, since it's online and he can access it when he wants, but it turned out the platform was difficult to access, and he did not study that well. Last August, we got his AS level results and he failed the exam. So we decided to pull him out and immediately gave the school notice that he would not be returning in September.

The school are now saying that we need to pay a full term's fees as 'exit fees'. they have retained our £500 deposit already, but want a further £1300. There have been no services given as my son has not accessed any of the school's resources / platforms since June this year.

Are these types of exit fees legal? from what i have read, they are not. I also think that their retaining the £500 is not legal either.

They are now also threatening us with a debt recovery service. I know that these don't really have any power to enforce anything since they are not mandated by a court order, but this seems like intimidation and harassment to me.

Any advice on whether this is legal or not?

thanks

Just to deal with the advice OP claims to have received.

charging a fee for a service which is not provided is absolutely not legal

They cannot charge for a service which they refuse (or are unable) to provide, but that isn't the situation here. The fact that you are choosing not to take up the service does not mean they are refusing to provide it. They are therefore entitled to charge.

clear grounds to argue for discrimination for the poor service provided which did not meet my son's educational needs

Possibly, but you haven't provided enough information here to substantiate such a claim. The fact he failed the exam is not, in and of itself, proof of poor service. If they were aware of your son's condition before you booked the service and advised that their service was suitable for him, you may have a case. However, if they did not provide any such advice and you simply booked it thinking it was suitable, you are much less likely to be able to make out a case.

you cannot just roll-over the Ts and Cs of a previous contract as you see fit

If the contract ended after the first year, you have a point. However, your OP suggests that the contract was either a rolling contract which renewed automatically until your son completed his education or appropriate notice was given, or a two-year contract. In either case, the Ts and Cs would continue to apply.

Is it an exit fee, or charging for the notice period?

Notice periods in contracts are generally enforceable.

Good luck OP. You are going to need it. The legal advice you report to have received sounds dubious to say the least. Based on the information you have provided here, I think prh47bridge has given you sound advice.

In my experience with the invaluable help they gave me with the school appeals process, they have a specialism in education law. you are very arrogant dismissing their advice

@pigsinbutter I can guarantee you are going to regret not taking PRh’s advice.

It’s not an exit fee, it’s one term’s notice. If you had given the notice before Easter holidays, there would be no charge at all.

I see.

May I wish you well in your endeavours and please do report back once you have been successful in this task.

Take care.

Please do keep us updated what happens after your strongly worded letter is received OP.

As far as I am concerned, a contract is a contract, you agreed to it when you signed it. (Assuming it is not an unfair contract).

I will be amazed to learn you have discovered that that (very standard) clause in a private school contract is not enforceable so will be very curious to find out what happens next.

Ok I think there’s a difference between ‘exit fees’ and fees in lieu of notice, the latter is what most posters are referring to, which are legal and enforceable (deposit is separate but may be used to part pay, not in addition to). Also most are referring to private attended school, not online school, which may have different terms.
If you intended to consult a solicitor why did you ask on here? No one would know the exact contract you signed.

Hi we used on online school
For our dd a couple of years ago. They are set up exactly as private schools are. We had the choice of different contracts but once you'd signed them you had to stick to them. To be fair they employ teachers in the same way any school does - based on numbers of pupils- so it is fair to expect a terms notice. On this one I think you are actually being the unreasonable party - you sign and agreed, they provided and continue to provide the service until Christmas which is your terms notice.

Incidentally, I bet I can guess how much the fees are per term...

It is very easy and will not cost the school more than £250 in legal costs via money claim online, which will be fully chargeable to you, to issue a claim against you. Actually getting the money out of you will be more difficult, but you need to weigh up if a CCJ against you will be more problematic for you on the future than settling with the school.

The solicitor saw you coming op.

Why are you so certain that the advice you have received was correct? No solicitor is infallible. Did the solicitor quote chapter and verse in terms of, for instance, case law supporting the advice given?

I wonder if the difficulty here is the terminology used? As many people have pointed out, it is absolutely standard for schools to require a term's notice before withdrawing a pupil and if you do not give that notice the terms and conditions require you to pay a term's fees in lieu. It isn't generally called an exit fee, it's a payment in lieu of notice. What does your contract say about giving notice of withdrawal of your child from the course?

The problem with that is that they were providing a service. The fact that you decided to withdraw your child without notice and therefore were not accessing the service doesn't change that fact.

The in-person schools have as a standard one term notice period, so they can fill the place by another fee paying student. You can use the place or not during that time.

I'm wondering how much the fact it is an online school matters here - maybe they don't have strictly limited number of places in the classroom?

OP, let's say that you DS passed his exam and were coming back to school. Would you expect the school to have a place for him? What would that be based on?

When you say you’ve consulted a solicitor, you don’t mean to sort that you get free as part of Legal expenses cover on your home insurance do you? I’ve spoken to one or two of those recently and they were absolute shit. I could tell they were literally googling the questions and reading back to me Websites said I’d already seen. Some of these will be legal graduates who have scraped through their assessments using ChatGPT, so please don’t trust what they say.

Has your son been expelled?
has some specialist help available that your son cannot attend without been withdrawn?
if not then they have not withdrawn a service; you are deciding not to send your son during the one month notice period, the service is available to him

i have serious doubts about your solicitor op

i had to pay a terms notice when we decided not to send my DS to a private school as we secured a suitable state school place. He hadn’t even started and we had to pay it, it’s called a contract.

If it’s in the contract they will pursue and they will win quite easily.

Honestly you've gotten poor advice, these fees are enforceable if you've signed a contract agreeing to them. If you do a search of Mumsnet you'll find lots of posts from people in your situation who've ended up having to pay them after takin proper advice.

the fact that your son failed in irrelevant unless you can proove that that the service was not as advertised which can be hard to do retrospectively.

Ind schools do tend to enforce these clauses so as not to set a precedent so will absolutely pass to debt collector at the very least which will wreck your credit rating .

Anyway it seems from your tone that you'll believe what you want to regardless so not sure what you were hoping to get from posting here .

OP was your advice from ChatGPT or a proper solicitor who understands your situation and has read the school contract? Without knowing this, the discussion is pointless.
It must be very worrying to see your son dropping out of education and perhaps this is the main cause of your stress?

I am assuming that this is KIH - they will chase you and it is in the contract.

My teen sat AS levels last year with the same online school, same profile as your child (ASD, PDA, ADHD) and it worked well for them. However, we started a few years ago to give them time to adjust before key exams. I am sure that it is all very stressful, but I think pursuing this and paying lawyers for bad advice is going to cause you more stress.

Like most posters on here i think you will find to your detriment that this payment is enforceable. But something that I have not seen mentioned. A solicitor is £250-400 per hour plus Vat. Your bill seems to be for £1800. You are going to be up to that amount pretty quickly using a solicitor, with no chance of reimbursement. Probably better to pay the £1300 and settle the matter.

@Academyofanythingbe aware that your solicitor is out to make money from you too. You may find you have to pay her/him as much or more than the school is asking you to pay - he may tell you you have a strong case, but he might not be right.

Perhaps the confusion lies in you calling it an “exit fee”. It isn’t. The school isn’t asking you for more money to unenroll your son. It’s asking for the money you committed to paying them in the contract you signed.
Easiest thing would be to use that money by encouraging your son to keep trying to study and to give the school a term’s notice.

@socialdilemmawhattodo Snap!