Nursery made a huge mistake on their fees - Kids already started

[looking4answers24]

Hi
I am looking for some advice on a really worrying situation.
We reserved a place for our 2.4yo child in a Nursery after viewing several others in June 2024. The start date was August 2024.

We received confirmation that the fees would be £100 a month after including 15 hours free childcare for 2 days a week. We double and triple checked this amount with the nursery in writing via email (they even provided us with an invoice stating the expected fees as from Sept), before we committed and before we started sending our child there.
Now, they sent us an invoice for Sept requesting £400, which is a shock.
The nursery manager called to say it was their mistake bla bla bla.
But I am now in a position where this amount is way above our budget and our child has also already getting used to the nursery and on top of that, it is impossible to find another nursery for an immediate start even if we did think about moving over. In addition to that, the amount of stress this is causing us - we had everything planned with our workplaces and the nursery so that the childcare works for us. PS: Its apparently an Outstanding nursery and has been nominated for some awards too. Now, I have the feeling, they enticed us with a fake lower price, once we have sent our child and we have no other option, they drop the bombshell on us that the price is actually 4 times more.
What can/should we do? Where do we go from here?
Seriously looking for some help and advice here.

Thanks

Sounds more like a cock up than a conspiracy.

I would ask them to honour the £100 per month until you can find alternative provision.

Did you sign a contract stating fees are £100 per month? You can fall back on this legally, but I would assume they’ll give you notice.

Move this to Legal

What does your contract say? Have you got a fee sheet?

I will say that my son does 2 days too, and gets the 15 hours free, and that works out at £460 a month for us - so this does sound correct to me.

Have they honoured the £100 for September?

They have sent this in writing and I did sign a document confirming the amount with them.

Yes I do have a fee sheet confirming £100 a month for my son for 2 days a week.
They have not - they only recently sent their Sept invoice (which was for £400) which is when I raised this matter to them.

I agree - ask MN to move to legal. My opinion is that they should honor the contract, or at least meet in the middle... but my opinion is meaningless in terms of what recourse you actually have! Get some useful input from the legal board.

Dont think they can wiggle out of it now. They can advise you of an increase but a reasonable notice period is needed. Im guessing that would be a term. Seek advice?

Will you find childcare for less than £50 a day in your area? If not, then it’s better to keep them where they are, despite it being much more than you anticipated.

NAL. If you queried it multiple times, and have in writing, their confirmation each time it was correctly costed at £100 per month, they need to honour it. The way the law works against you is if you did not raise the clear mistake, but you have and they agreed it was correct. However, I suspect they'll give you notice to leave rather than continue to agree for your nursery place being kept at £100.

They can't decide to charge you more than agreed. Is there any thing in the contract about fee increases? Or notice of changes to contract (on either side)

Usually it's anything between 30 days and 12 weeks notice:

IANAL, but I'd assume that you might have a case to make them honour the £100/m for the duration of the notice period they have to give you for fee increases. But realistically, they're not going to honour a 25% rate long term, so you need to decide whether you want to leave, or whether you want to stay @£400/m

It sounds like a big mistake to be honest, £100 a month in no way covers 2 days a week. I would reach out to them so you don’t have to pay extra on the hours you’ve attended but I think if you can’t afford the higher amount they will likely give you notice. There no way they can afford to lose that much money per month sadly

Apologies for my naivety but what is "IANAL" and "NAL"?

Thats the catch-22 situation.
My child is happy there, but they sold it to me at a price that I can afford and charged me a price that I cannot afford.
Our work hours have also been changed to align with the nursery, so getting my child out of nursery at this time or even after 1 months notice will have a large impact on the family overall and our jobs.

I Am Not A Lawyer

I’m very puzzled. 2 days a week can’t be more than 20 hours max. You get 15 hours free. So you’re only paying for about 5 hours a week?

Thats about 20 hours a month that you’re paying for, so £100 (£5 an hour) sounds reasonable. If they’re asking for £400 that’s more like £20 an hour, which is ridiculous!

£50 a session (if there’s 4 weeks in a month) is pretty good depending on where you live. You’re not going to find anywhere that charges £100 a month, literally no where will accept £12.50 a day. No business could survive on that whether it be a nursery type setting nor a childminder. Tax free childcare would give some support in regards to payments.

I agree with others. You need to read the contract that you have signed. This will give clarity on what you are expected to pay whilst in contacts (£100 a month) but also how long you will have to find alternative provision which is likely to be the notice period. No nursery will honour such a huge unintended discount on fees in the medium/long term

That’s what I was thinking when pps were saying the op should have known it would be more

Exactly
Also by @Bellamari calculations the amount charged appears to exclude the free hours.

Could a voucher code or something been put in error somewhere.... Leading to OP's free hours not being claimed properly?

Is it possible these fees haven't included your free 15 hours? That's what it looks like.

Was the child 2 before 1st April 2024?

If not you are not entitled to 15 free hours until September 2024

Free 15 hours only comes to 11 hours a week if it's open all year round.
And if a day is 10 hours and you have to pay for meals, then that could be just a very expensive setting near enough 10 pounds an hour.
Still does seem hard to believe, but just about plausible.
On the other hand If your days are only 6 hours then 100 pounds a month seems more than enough.
Either way you need a new nursery unfortunately!

Is part of the problem the way the funding for the ‘free’ hours works? The Govt pays far less than the actual cost of providing those hours, meaning the non-funded hours have to be charged at a much higher rate to cover the shortfall. Last time I looked the govt was paying something ridiculous like less than £4 an hour, and so the actual amounts parents paid were still a lot.

But further to the above, try asking them for a breakdown eg hourly rate, number of hours charged, funded hours claimed, extras eg lunch, nappies or whatever, and the time period eg 4 weeks or 5