Is This Legal?

Stemar

Stemar

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My mooring payment falls due on 1st June. As usual, I received my invoice, dated 5th June, a couple of weeks before. As usual, it was printed with an offer of 5% for early payment. What was new was that someone had taken a felt pen and scrubbed out the offer. How to win friends and influence people...

On that basis, I have no interest in paying early and I'm seriously p!ssed off, so I decide to wait a while. I read the standard conditions of business, which allow them to charge interest if payment is more than 30 days late and charge storage where appropriate and decide to wait a while to make a point. I posted my cheque over the weekend.

Today, I received this letter, sent by normal post:

You currently owe mooring fees from 1/6/06.

If we do not receive payment in full by 1/7/06 a movement fee of £1000 will be charged to you.

Also £100 per month storage will also be payable.

Please phone ***** on ************* to arrange payment to ******* Securities Ltd.

Thankyou *****

Their conditions of business, printed on the back of both letter and invoice make no mention of any such charge. It's the same sort of financial bullying that Congestion Charge and parking ticket enforcement people use, but they, at least, makr their charges plain in advance and have law, albeit iniquitous law to back them up.

Can they really do this?

BTW, I know for a fact that they haven't got a queue of people waiting for moorings, 'cos the one next to mine is empty.
 
Sounds like they are too lazy to print new versions of the papers and using old....

It may be that somewhere on some notice board in the marina is a paper detailing such babaric terms ... and then possibly you are on a losing wicket ...

Marinas seem to have a right heavy handed way of dealing with their clients ...

I may have a grotty yard and not the best marina in the world - but I pay monthly by standing order ... never have any hassle over payments ... even when they increased charges - no hassle - they were reasonable and waited for my return and we agreed a settlement ...

BUt I do object to being a stable reliable paying client on time and paying a pren=mium for having monthly system. Its not Direct Debit - so they don't have to collect - its a standing order that my bank executes ... Now I am sure there are annual payment people that are not so good at coughing up on time and they enjoy a lesser fee cause they agree to annual ... even though they probably have to be chased and hounded to pay.

Mmmmm think I'll have a chat to them about it ....

Good luck with your marina ...
 
Impossible to say without knowing what your contract says. If there's nothing in writing it's even harder to say.

However, if you've sent your cheque off is there any point in getting wound up about it? It's better to go boating instead.
 
There is no initial written contract. It's a swinging mooring, I paid my money and was told your mooring is number so-and so, over there.

I got wound up over the w*nkers who didn't have the decency to reprint the invoice if they didn't want to give the discount and told them what I thought in the letter accompanying my cheque, but now I'm just curious.
 
I reckon it's not legal. The various sanctions they mention are in reality dressed up penalties for late payment. This stuff about £1000 for moving the boat is nonsense. If I remember correctly, by law they can only charge a reasonable rate of interest on unpaid sums, and any other sums payable on top (except bona fide damages for losses they may incur), however they are dressed up, are considered to be a penalty and cannot be enforced by them. It makes no difference whether its in their terms or not, they have no right to do it.

What they COULD do is to issue a final demand stating that they will terminate the contract if you don't pay up by a specified date.
 
Yes, it is annoying when companies handle things like that.
I hope you just took off the 5% discount and sent the cheque for that amount!
That's what I did with my mooring this year. Theoreticaly I was a couple of weeks late, but they took the money and I've heard no more about it.
 
Quite a strange time for a mooring renewal. All the ones I have ever come across start the summer on 1st April and then winter on either 1st October or 1st November.

Is this a particularly large hirer? It doesn't sound like they are very professional... scribbling with a felt tip does not give a good impression.
 
I recommend a subscribtion to Which? Legal Advice, they're whizzo on consumer law. Also contact the RYA Legal Dept - tho' they're over-run with cases like this. Oh, complain to the BMF, also your local Trading Standards Office, not forgetting the Office of Fair Trading if you think it applicable.
As Corporal Jones used to say: "They don't like it up 'em!"

You may be surprised at what results.
 
For any contract or term therein to be enforcable, it has to be agreed by both parties. There can be agreement by default if they have notified you by 'substantial means'. This could be on the notice board for instance if the existing T's and C's allow for this.

Consumer contracts that are not individually negotiated fall under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Act which does not allow them to be too one sided.

However, I think Marinas and Moorings, like Port Operators are immune from this one.
 
Clearly if you have not paid by 1st July you will be late and they are warning you that they have the right to remove your boat to the hard and charge you for storage. I would ignore it and just send the cheque before the end of the month.
 
Although I did not pass my exams, I did study the law of contract many years ago.

By agreeing to a "deal" and you paying your money and they accepting and saying "your mooring is number so and so", that is a contract.

The written document, had you had one, would be the evidence of that contract. Without a written document from the marina, the law tends to be biased in your favour, if there is a dispute over the "reasonable" details of what you understood the contract to be.

However, like many legal matters, the law is one thing, and enforcing it is another.
 
But for the reasons I already mentioned the penalties they're trying to impose over and above interest would be legally ineffective even if they were expressly written into the contract in capital letters, the contract was signed on each page in blood and your signature was witnessed by the Queen. I hope that's a bit clearer!
 
I'm not so sure. They are giving a bit of notice and the amount is overdue. If he hasn't renewed, he might be planning to move away and in the meantime they could easily have lost opportunities to re-let the berth for 12 months and hence their loss could already be at least £1,000.

I thnik the law relating to penalties on interest apply to commerical debts,between companies.
Found this : http://www.paylate.co.uk/
 
What they're saying in the link that you give is in line with what I was saying, although they are also discussing an extra statutory procedure recently introduced for commercial transactions, but similar basic principles apply. These are, as your link says and as I also said, there is the potential for the creditor (1) to charge interest and (2) to claim damages for breach of contract.

With regard to (2) your link is saying that it is possible to make a realistic reasonable pre-estimate of what damages would be and include that in the contract - they call it a fixed penalty, though probably most lawyers would call it a "liquidated damages clause". This isn't relevant to us as there apparently is no such liquidated damages clause in our case - in fact there doesn't seem to be even a written contract.

All this stuff about charging £1,000 for moving the boat can't be damages, whether liquidated or otherwise - the mooring operator calls it a movement fee, there's no indication that anyone has agreed to liquidated damages, and they pretend that the movement fee is payable even if you pay in full, say, 40 days late, so it can't be a pre-estimate of damages. So it's completely legally unenforceable.
 
In case you're interested, there's a much clearer brief explanation of what liquidated damages are here and a bit about the common law on excessive penalties are here.
 
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