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

My nursery fees are £87 a week for 2 days and the 15 (11) free hours a week. I think they’ve told you £100 a week instead of ) £100 a month. They should let you do £100 this month but I would expect them to give notice if you don’t agree to £400.

Do you think maybe they've not included your 15 hours funding? Did you apply for your funding on the gov website and let them know your code?
You may also be entitled to tax free childcare as well if you haven't already applied?

What’s on your invoice? Does it mention the funded hours and do you have extra charges on there for things like food? What’s the normal day rate?

If you have 15 free hours of childcare for the 2 days your child is there, then those 2 days should be almost completely covered. £400 'extra' sounds extortionate, frankly.

That’s not how the free hours deal works. First of all, the free hours are only during term time so is the child is in nursery all year round that’s 13 weeks that are not covered.

Email them the document confirming fees of £100 and ask them to re-issue the invoice for the agreed amount. That would be the hard line. However, the nursery is unlikely to be willing to continue caring for your DC at a loss.

If £400 is comparable to other nurseries in the area you may have to just suck it up or find alternative provision.

Best to look at them as ‘partially funded’ rather than free hours and it starts to make more sense.

The nursery sounds a bit crap though!

Reading between the lines, you would like your child to stay at this nursery at the price of £100. Realistically this is not going to happen. What you could possibly negociate is for the to only charge the £100 until a reasonable alternative is available, is nursery not too far away with similar hours. I really don’t see how they would accept for more than 2-3 months though.

They won't accept that. Why would they agree to OP paying 25% of their apparent fees indefinitely, especially if every other nursery is more than £100? They're effectively giving her the open ended option for really cheap fees. No business would do that.

Firstly, look around at other nurseries to see if any have availability and what their fees are like in comparison. Ask this nursery to double check the funded hours and whether the invoice is correct.

Realistically you can push back on this one invoice as your original contract is £100. But going forward (if £400 is correct) that is what you will have to pay, or move.

If you are only going 2 days a week, you may not be able to use the 15h in full eg if there is a morning session for fees 9-12 and an afternoon session 1-4, then your two days a week would only include 12 funded hours

That is how my nursery used to do it, so they got 4h paid and 6h gov funded in an 8-6 day.

Absolutely, this is what I meant, sorry maybe badly written, they might say ok to the 100£ for 1-2 months, to give OP time to find a place somewhere else, but they won’t keep it long term.

I think they’ve told you £100 a week instead of ) £100 a month

Yes, this is what I think. What was the wording?

Yes this is what makes the thread feel odd. OP seems to be insinuating there should be a way to stay at the nursery for the mistaken price because her child is happy and they made arrangements around it. Pricing mistakes happen in real life but there's no chance a business will allow you to continue paying a price 75% below the industry standard. Also, imagine the parents from the same nursery found out. Why would X be allowed to stay there on 25% of the fees just because the nursery mistakenly confirmed a lower price. (It's actually possibly OP knew the price was too good to be true but asked in a vague manner hoping that even if it was a mistake, it would end up having to be honoured).

What were the prices of other nurseries you looked at, @looking4answers24 ? How did they compare?

They made you an offer of x number of nursery hours for £x and you agreed and signed a contract. They’ll have to honour it or risk being sued for breach of contract.

It’s completely irrelevant that they since realised they made a mistake as it’s not the same as sticking the wrong price sticker on an item of clothing in a shop.

Ignore the morality tribe on here as it’s only the application of contract law that matters. 🤷🏻‍♀️

But they’re also well within their rights to give notice just as a parent can give notice to the nursery. Yes, they may have to honour the price for the hours used and the notice period given but they don’t have to carry on with the contract for an extended period of time.

We get the 15 free hours but it's only term time, so as my little girl is in nursery year round it works out 11 free hours per week. Ours also charge an additional £70 per month as an "enhanced provision" fee for extras. I think ours works out £330 per month total for 2 days per week, so if you're in an expensive area I think £400 is about right.

Don't forget you can open a tax free childcare account and the government will top it up by 20%, so your £400 bill will actually be £320.

As general fee help... have you seen if you are eligible for a University Credit childcare help and/or tax free childcare?

I'm a lawyer and this "legal advice" is incorrect

if I were you I’d be asking them to honour Septembers invoice at the £100. But there’s no way they’d be able to keep your child there at that cost along with it being unfair on other parents paying the correct amount. They’ve obviously got week and month mixed up. If they were having to lie to parents to get their kids to join their nursery it definitely wouldn’t be a nursery I’d be sending my child to. Most nurseries in my area have 12 month waiting lists since the new funded hours have been rolled out.
The funded hours barely cover staff let alone food, nappies, utilities etc. Most nurseries charge premiums on top of the daily charge to help cover these costs.

If your hours have been spread across the year rather than term time only I think £400 a month would be right with a premium charge on top.

You’ll have to query this with them, if it was to cover 15 hours a week leaving you to only be paying for half a day a week then it sounds expensive.

What is their notice period?

I use two days a week. I have to take it over specific sessions eg 3 half days or 1 full day 1 half day. The half day rate is £45, I also have to pay for meals and a 15 hour surcharge. Luckily I only need term time only as the funding is only in place for 38 weeks. Works out about £65 a week...

Report them to ofsted. Mistakes happen and that is fine but if this accident is going to end up being emotionally upsetting for the child because they have to move nursery, then I think it’s something the regulator should know about.

@YellowphantGrey ** - there is no need to quote the opening post before you reply. It is assumed your post is addressed to the OP. Imagine how long the thread would be if everyone quoted the full opening post before replying!