I would like your honest opinion please?

[mel29]

OP said it was through the next lock next to them. Two people. Half a day. Plus cleaning up the boat etc. £250 is easily justified.

Not to tell us face to face, 4 days later via text we were told no deposit? Its a different story when the customer is paying, straight on it then

 

[mel29]

?

How does a telephone to the owner qualify as abandoning the boat?

 

[Biggles Wader]

Not quite clear who ended the charter. Did you decide not to continue or did the owner decide you had to forfeit the remaining three days holiday? If the former you would not be entitled to a refund of the charter fee. If the latter I suggest you could sue for all of it. As for the deposit I think it is unreasonable to withhold it. Assuming the boat is clean, undamaged and just up the canal a short distance then with three days vacant possession and rental paid the owner could easily get it back in time for the next customer. That's part of running a holiday business and they should give it back.

 

[MontyMariner]

Was this your first ever boat hire?
Given the circumstance could you have used the boat as a static holiday base, you would have learned a bit about moving around a boat and its inherent trip hazards.

 

[mel29]

Not quite clear who ended the charter. Did you decide not to continue or did the owner decide you had to forfeit the remaining three days holiday? If the former you would not be entitled to a refund of the charter fee. If the latter I suggest you could sue for all of it. As for the deposit I think it is unreasonable to withhold it. Assuming the boat is clean, undamaged and just up the canal a short distance then with three days vacant possession and rental paid the owner could easily get it back in time for the next customer. That's part of running a holiday business and they should give it back.

Hi thanks for your reply...we had to make the decision not to continue...there didn't seem to be any plan to legislate for such occurrences..when I said to her that we didn't expect a refund for the hire her words were ..I wondered how that was going to work...not once did she imply that we wouldn't receive our deposit, as I mentioned earlier it took her till the Thursday ( we left Sunday 2pm) to tell us via a text message that we were not receiving the deposit as her husband had taken a day off work to collect the boat.

 

[mel29]

Was this your first ever boat hire?
Given the circumstance could you have used the boat as a static holiday base, you would have learned a bit about moving around a boat and its inherent trip hazards.

Thanks for your reply..we wouldn't have telephoned the owner of we could continue in any way ..but after the fall getting on and off the boat and the steps were too much to deal with..it wasn't safe to continue.

 

[Tranona]

Thanks for your reply ...I am interested how people see things differently .I think it was harsh and certainly rude of her not to tell us that she was keeping our deposit face to face ...not wait until we had been home for 4 days..
We were actually moored just before the lock moorings themselves less then a minute away ..winding hole was immediately after the same lock.
No goodwill whatsoever just rude .

The reason people see things differently is because you have come on here out of the blue with half a story and indicating that you are unhappy. What did you hope to achieve? Why do you think random people you do not know are going to agree with you?

There is always more than one side to any story and the only people who know what went on are you and the other person. You have drip fed extra bits of information every time you have been pushed back.

You had a contract with the hirer. Look at it to see if there is anything that allows you to end the hire and reclaim everything (or a portion) of what you paid. Pretty sure there won't be. You paid for the hire but did not fully utilise it - your choice. You did not return the boat to the starting point as I am sure the contract requires, so not unreasonable to retain the deposit - it was you that broke the terms of the contract and the deposit is taken to offset the cost of recovering the boat and getting it ready for the next hirer.

Given the circumstances it is not unreasonable to expect some flexibility on a goodwill basis, but I suggest from the tone of your report of the exchanges with the other party it is well past that point.

The cause of cutting short your hire should be covered by your travel insurance. If you do not have insurance you now know the consequences of assuming such risks yourself.

 

[Pye_End]

... that we were not receiving the deposit as her husband had taken a day off work to collect the boat.

So long as it is written into the contract, is this a reasonable explanation?

 

[ridgy]

What was the weather like?

 

[Tomaret]

We are told that the owner’s husband had to take a day off work to move the boat back to base. If he is a salaried employee he would need to be earning around £60k for a day (of leave) to be worth £250. If self-employed his day rate would have to be £250 to justify keeping the whole deposit. Neither seems unlikely. Leaving aside the state of relations between the parties, and the question of whether it could have been handled better, the owner may be justified in keeping the deposit.

 

[mel29]

We are told that the owner’s husband had to take a day off work to move the boat back to base. If he is a salaried employee he would need to be earning around £60k for a day (of leave) to be worth £250. If self-employed his day rate would have to be £250 to justify keeping the whole deposit. Neither seems unlikely. Leaving aside the state of relations between the parties, and the question of whether it could have been handled better, the owner may be justified in keeping the deposit.

What was the weather like?

The best thing about the whole experience to be fair!

 

[mel29]

We are told that the owner’s husband had to take a day off work to move the boat back to base. If he is a salaried employee he would need to be earning around £60k for a day (of leave) to be worth £250. If self-employed his day rate would have to be £250 to justify keeping the whole deposit. Neither seems unlikely. Leaving aside the state of relations between the parties, and the question of whether it could have been handled better, the owner may be justified in keeping the deposit.

Thankyou for your comment.

 

[mww]

Thankyou for your comment.

Maybe she left it until the end of your hire period to contact you, once her costs were known.

Perhaps her husband took the day off to assist an employee so that there were two of them to manage the lock twice, the turn and recover the boat back to the departure point. Maybe she added a charge for her time time to drive, collect you, secure the boat and drive you back - only 8 minutes each way, but it all adds up for a business. An 8 minute drive in a cab where I live is about £18, so that is £36 for the transport. One hour of her time - who knows, maybe £35? Transport x 2 for her husband.
So that's £100 without his time.

It is an unfortunate tale and thankfully your friend was only bruised rather than a serious ongoing injury.

Did they offer you insurance when you booked or did you pay using a card that includes travel insurance or general accident insurance? Some company health schemes provide cover. Any annual travel insurance policies? Generally they will cover pre-booked UK holidays & travel too.

Sadly, I'd write it off if insurance (don't forget excesses) doesn't help. You would likely have spent £160 on canal side meals for 2 over 4 days. So financially you are probably not much worse off than if the accident hadn't happened, but you unfortunately had to abandon your holiday.

 

[MisterBaxter]

If I've understood correctly the owner had to turn the boat then take it five miles with one lock. I would expect to do that in about 2.5 hours single handed, so a relaxed evening's work. I certainly wouldn't charge for it out if the deposit - it feels like just the kind of thing you have to deal with from time to time if you're hiring out your narrow boat. Especially at £700 for four days.

 

[Charlie Boy]

I suspect that your contract of hire will lay out their charges for this type of problem.
If you have a disagreement then that is your starting point. Read the contract

 

[xyachtdave]

I’d ask ChatGPT, they appear to have anchoring sorted on another thread, so this should be a piece cake.

Definitive answer in microseconds.

 

[Mark-1]

My 2ps worth: Recovering the boat is *exactly* the kind of thing that deposit is for and the hirer will have no problem at all demonstrating that the commercial rate for moving that boat one lock down is £250+.

If it was my business and things were going well and I had some spare time I might say "I'll do it myself tonight and let you off the deposit" but there's no obligation to do so.

You're going to have to suck it up this time, and next time it will be easy to find a volunteer to help you move the boat back FOC, either on the spot or online.

 

[scottie]

Did the owner fully delivery their obligations and provide the boat as described
did the OP carry out their obligations in accordance to their returning the boat as required
was the security deposit meant to cover failure of OP to do so
no information as to the experience required prior to charter and compedence of OP
it is all one sided so far

 

[ylop]

...when I said to her that we didn't expect a refund for the hire her words were ..I wondered how that was going to work...not once did she imply that we wouldn't receive our deposit,…

Ok, let me help you out here. Many people don’t like conflict. You are coming across here as though you are, what the modern world has nicknamed “a Karen”. So to translate, what the owner actually meant was probably “good, you seem like the sort of crazy who might have expected a refund despite causing us a load of problems, at least you understand you aren’t getting your money back”.

If they genuinely haven’t encountered this sort of issue before that would suggest to me that most hirers who encounter an issue are quite resourceful at solving it themselves. Perhaps motivated by getting their £250 back.

as I mentioned earlier it took her till the Thursday ( we left Sunday 2pm) to tell us via a text message that we were not receiving the deposit

I’m not sure why the fact it took a few days and multiple emails to get a response has upset you so much. Not everyone treats email like it’s a conversation requiring an immediate response - it was never intended as such. Perhaps a text message was not the most courteous way to respond.

as her husband had taken a day off work to collect the boat.

So they incurred costs and inconvenience caused by your failure to fulfill your obligations under the contract.

If I've understood correctly the owner had to turn the boat then take it five miles with one lock. I would expect to do that in about 2.5 hours single handed, so a relaxed evening's work. I certainly wouldn't charge for it out if the deposit - it feels like just the kind of thing you have to deal with from time to time if you're hiring out your narrow boat. Especially at £700 for four days.

It feels like exactly the sort of thing that causes a business like that a load of hassle and which they might want to protect themselves from by having a deposit which gets retained when the client screws up.

I assume the charter was on standard BMF (or whatever the name is now) T&Cs and IIRC there will be an arbitration clause. I’d be surprised if the arbitrator found in favour of the client for leaving a boat pointing the wrong way, 2.5 hrs from base, just because one of the people on board had a non life-threatening injury several days before the end of the charter. However it may cost Mel nothing to find out.

 

[mel29]

Thankyou all for your comments. I wanted honest opinions and that is what I have got from you all.