School has sent letter in lieu of notice!

[vikidoc]

Dear all, would very much appreciate your view on this issue. We accepted a place in Salcombe Prep school, London for our daughter in May 14 but cancelled it in August 14 as a place became available at a local school nearer to our home in August 14. We lost the deposit paid to Salcombe school (£800). Now Salcombe school have sent an invoice for the first term fees (£2400) and if this is not paid are warning that the issue would be forwarded to a debt collection agency! We as parents feel that it is unfair that we have to pay for a service we have not received as our daughter did not attend school even for a single day. I understand the business risk to the school but is this not something that they should insure themselves against like other businesses which have orders cancelled and retain only deposits? We were recently offered insurance by a company to be able to reclaim paid tuition fees if our daughter goes off sick!! Why cant independent schools do the same? I wonder if anyone else had this unpleasant experience before and would welcome any advice.

But the only cancellation fees that the school may charge are the measure of a fair estimate of its (mitigated) losses. Suppose for the sake of argument that the school has a long waiting list, and is able to offer a place to another pupil, who immediately accepts it. Once the school has done that, it has mitigated its losses. The only money it can claim from the OP is the cost of printing and sending an application pack to another child (plus, perhaps, a very small amount of admin time).

Now suppose the school has 5 vacancies for the OP's child class. The classroom can accommodate these extra children; the teachers still need to get paid; there is very little extra resources needed to accommodate 25 instead of 20 children. With the OP's child, the class size goes up to 21 - still rooom to accommodate 4 more children. If the OP had not taken a place in May, there would have been an extra vacancy in the class. The school did not have to reject any other applicant in the (mistaken) belief that the OP's child would attend - it still had other vacancies it could offer. The school is now in the same position as it would have been, had the OP not registered her child at all in May. What is the damage suffered by the school in that scenario? Genuine question, I don't know how school manage their resources.

If the school is in breach of the terms of the contract (including implied terms), e.g. by failing to fulfil its duty of care to your son, you may be entitled to withdraw your child without notice. However, if you simply removed your child from school and did not attempt to address the issues with them by, for example, discussing your concerns with the head teacher and giving the school a chance to sort out the problems the courts may decide that you have to pay up.

So if they chase you to pay a term in lieu will you pay up rather than go to court ? ime private schools, especially those struggling along are usually bloody single-minded enough to pursue this, mainly as an example to others rather than mitigate their own costs as the place will most likely be filled. Also if you default on one set of fees this may well be communicated to other schools you apply for or you are asked to declare that no fees are outstanding .

Schools always vigorously defend cases such as this, and it's about the contract not investigating complaints.

To succeed, you will need to show that you have exhausted every remedy within the contract.

You will need to look carefully at exactly what is in the school's grievance procedure. Did you follow it to the letter? You need a comprehensive dossier containing all letters, emails, notes of phone calls and meeting which show you used the grievance procedure and the school broke the contract by failing to act. One formal letter just before ceasing payment will not suffice. You really do need to dig everything out, and it sounds like you have some.

The courts will have to decide if their breach of formal procedure was grave enough to be considered reason to overturn the whole contract. Much will depend on time lines and what exactly happened.

These cases are rarely won by the parents, and if lost cost far more than the fees in lieu. Plus they can be emotionally draining (especially as it is about the contract, not the child, which can be hard when your natural instinct is with your DC). Once your initial emotion has ebbed, you need a cold hard look to decide whether this fight will be worth it.

This is contract law. It won't hold the school to account in any useful way.

Curlywurly, are they chasing you for the term's fees? If not, I would drop it if I were you as you're liable to incur more than a term's fees in solicitors' bills.

Would be fascinated to know which GDST school Sunflower found so lacking!! Both my DDS at a GDST school with which we couldn't be happier - there is so much more than results to consider when 'buying' your children's education. And their results add value to already bright girls' potential...especially in comparison with the private girls' school they both attended before swapping to their current school.

And in response to OP, the notice period is standard and probably in the contract signed when accepting the place.

Our child was to join the autumn (sept'16) term. We are in a situation where the contract asks for a terms notice but did not specify the start date of the preceeding (summer) term. We informed the school a week into the summer term that our child wont join the autumn term. This is more than 4 months in advance of the joining date. We have forfeited the deposite (this is understand). The school is still chasing us for a terms fees inspite of having more 4 months (full term) to fill the place. How are we in breach of the contract by inform the school immediately after it opens for summer term? Can someone please help us understand. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

you will be better off starting your own thread as people won't see your question and this thread is from 2014.

I think you revived another similar thread and got number of replies. They all said the same thing....