11 months ago I took out what I thought was a one year membership of a gym.
I signed a contract and a credit agreement which asked for payments to be
made monthly by direct debit for 12 months. I have made payments without
fail. I want to cancel it due to us not using it very much. Now the gym say
they need three months notice, even though my credit agreement is for 12
months. I checked the back of the contract and sure enough it says three
months in the small print.

I don't think that's fair, as it was never highlighted to us by the sales
person when we signed the contract initially.

I have written a letter offering one months notice, which takes me up to the
end of the 12 month period. I have quoted
Statutory Instrument 1999 No. 2083, The Unfair Terms In Consumer Contracts
Regulations 1999, Schedule Two, Regulation 5(5) Section 1 (h) "automatically
extending a contract of fixed duration where the consumer does not indicate
otherwise, when the deadline fixed for the consumer to express his desire
not to extend the contract is unreasonably early".

Do you think that my cancellation is reasonable, and will the gym be able to
sue me for two more month's payments? Any advice appreciated.

Thanks,

David

On Mon, 8 Jan 2007 22:05:02 +0000, "tiscali"
wrote:

11 months ago I took out what I thought was a one year membership of a gym.
I signed a contract and a credit agreement which asked for payments to be
made monthly by direct debit for 12 months. I have made payments without
fail. I want to cancel it due to us not using it very much. Now the gym say
they need three months notice, even though my credit agreement is for 12
months. I checked the back of the contract and sure enough it says three
months in the small print.

I don't think that's fair, as it was never highlighted to us by the sales
person when we signed the contract initially.


There is no reason why they should highlight it. It is up to you to
make yourself aware of the terms. Their only obligation is to make
sure the terms are readily available to you, and not to tell you
things which are not true.

You had the T&C. You have had the chance to read them, and could
easily have put in your cancellation two months ago if you had
bothered to find out that was the notice period.


I have written a letter offering one months notice, which takes me up to the
end of the 12 month period. I have quoted
Statutory Instrument 1999 No. 2083, The Unfair Terms In Consumer Contracts
Regulations 1999, Schedule Two, Regulation 5(5) Section 1 (h) "automatically
extending a contract of fixed duration where the consumer does not indicate
otherwise, when the deadline fixed for the consumer to express his desire
not to extend the contract is unreasonably early".


Which is irrelevant, because that is not what they are doing. This is
not a fixed term contract, it is an indeterminate one.

I doubt if that would be a particularly unreasonable term. Although a
court *might* just decide it was unreasonably long, it doesn't seem
likely to me.

Do you think that my cancellation is reasonable, and will the gym be able to
sue me for two more month's payments? Any advice appreciated.


They will be able to, but very possibly won't bother, depending on
what the value of the two months subscription they will lose is.
--
Alex Heney, Global Villager
Let's organize this thing and take all the fun out of it.
To reply by email, my address is alexATheneyDOTplusDOTcom

tiscali wrote:
11 months ago I took out what I thought was a one year membership of a gym.
I signed a contract and a credit agreement which asked for payments to be
made monthly by direct debit for 12 months. I have made payments without
fail. I want to cancel it due to us not using it very much. Now the gym say
they need three months notice, even though my credit agreement is for 12
months. I checked the back of the contract and sure enough it says three
months in the small print.

I don't think that's fair, as it was never highlighted to us by the sales
person when we signed the contract initially.

I have written a letter offering one months notice, which takes me up to the
end of the 12 month period. I have quoted
Statutory Instrument 1999 No. 2083, The Unfair Terms In Consumer Contracts
Regulations 1999, Schedule Two, Regulation 5(5) Section 1 (h) "automatically
extending a contract of fixed duration where the consumer does not indicate
otherwise, when the deadline fixed for the consumer to express his desire
not to extend the contract is unreasonably early".

Do you think that my cancellation is reasonable, and will the gym be able to
sue me for two more month's payments? Any advice appreciated.

Thanks,

David

There is another point you could argue, which is that any onerous terms
should be specifically drawn to the attention of the contracting party
(i.e. you) when you sign the agreement. It is arguable that 3 months
notice is excessive, and therefore that this clause should have been
drawn specifically to your attention.

However, as the clause clearly states that 3 month's notice should be
given it seems that the cause of the problem is your failure to read
the terms and conditions before you signed and/or when you wanted to
cancel. Whilst you could put forward various legal arguments, I fear
that if this circumstance you are unlikely to get much sympathy from a
Judge if the matter does escalate further and go to Court.

If you learn nothing else out of this, let it be this: always read what
you are signing.

11 months ago I took out what I thought was a one year membership of
a gym. I signed a contract and a credit agreement which asked for
payments to be made monthly by direct debit for 12 months. I have
made payments without fail. I want to cancel it due to us not using
it very much. Now the gym say they need three months notice, even
though my credit agreement is for 12 months. I checked the back of
the contract and sure enough it says three months in the small print.

I don't think that's fair, as it was never highlighted to us by the
sales person when we signed the contract initially.

I have written a letter offering one months notice, which takes me up
to the end of the 12 month period. I have quoted
Statutory Instrument 1999 No. 2083, The Unfair Terms In Consumer
Contracts Regulations 1999, Schedule Two, Regulation 5(5) Section 1
(h) "automatically extending a contract of fixed duration where the
consumer does not indicate otherwise, when the deadline fixed for the
consumer to express his desire not to extend the contract is
unreasonably early".

Do you think that my cancellation is reasonable, and will the gym be
able to sue me for two more month's payments? Any advice appreciated.

Cancel the DD as soon as the 12th payment has been taken. I doubt you will
hear any more. They are unlikely to want the bad publicity that you can
generate.

Peter Crosland

Just say any extra payments over twelve months will take you outside of your
credit agreement.


--
Toby

The more I study religions, the more I am convinced that
man never worshipped anything but himself.

Istvan

Alex Heney wrote:

You had the T&C. You have had the chance to read them, and could
easily have put in your cancellation two months ago if you had
bothered to find out that was the notice period.

Perhaps not - this is a well-rehearsed game for the gyms and it's common to
find that notice can only be given after 12 months have expired.

On Tue, 9 Jan 2007 19:25:03 +0000, "Steve Walker"
wrote:

Alex Heney wrote:

You had the T&C. You have had the chance to read them, and could
easily have put in your cancellation two months ago if you had
bothered to find out that was the notice period.

Perhaps not - this is a well-rehearsed game for the gyms and it's common to
find that notice can only be given after 12 months have expired.


IF that is the case, then that term would be unfair and unenforceable.

But he did not suggest that was the case here.
--
Alex Heney, Global Villager
No one ever said "if I'd only spent more time in the office"
To reply by email, my address is alexATheneyDOTplusDOTcom

Cancel the DD as soon as the 12th payment has been taken. I doubt
you will
hear any more. They are unlikely to want the bad publicity that you
can generate.

Peter Crosland




They will more than likely simply pass the debt onto a debt
collector.


This is exactly what they did to my daughter, she paid after
a series of letters indicating they would go to court.
She paid so as not to get a bad credit rating. Its easier.

The question of bad credit rating would only be significant if they went to
court and got judgement that was not paid. I suggest that the OP quote the
Unfair Contract legislation and the Unfair Business Practice Directive. I
really doub they will take it any further.

Peter Crosland

On Tue, 9 Jan 2007 22:50:04 +0000, "Peter Crosland"
wrote:

The question of bad credit rating would only be significant if they went to
court and got judgement that was not paid. I suggest that the OP quote the
Unfair Contract legislation and the Unfair Business Practice Directive. I
really doub they will take it any further.

Peter Crosland

Companies tend not to sue for small debts these days but go down the
debt collector route. They then place a default notice on the Credit
Reference Agency files and blacken your reputation without it ever
going to court.

I think this is most unfair especially if it is a disputed debt but I
have never heard of anyone successfully sueing a credit reference
agency for defamation.

--
Alasdair.

Alasdair wrote:
On Tue, 9 Jan 2007 22:50:04 +0000, "Peter Crosland"
wrote:

The question of bad credit rating would only be significant if they went to
court and got judgement that was not paid. I suggest that the OP quote the
Unfair Contract legislation and the Unfair Business Practice Directive. I
really doub they will take it any further.

Peter Crosland

Companies tend not to sue for small debts these days but go down the
debt collector route. They then place a default notice on the Credit
Reference Agency files and blacken your reputation without it ever
going to court.

I think this is most unfair especially if it is a disputed debt but I
have never heard of anyone successfully sueing a credit reference
agency for defamation.

I can see that this would be a problem.

But (IIRC) you do have a right under te Date Protection Act to require
anyone storing data about you to correct their file. This would (or at
least should) include placing a note on the file saying that the debt
is disputed. Hopefully that would help a bit.