Mouthy Money Your Questions Answered panelist Paul Britton answers a reader’s question about how to get a refund for money paid to a wedding caterer who died before the day.

Question: The caterer for our wedding tragically died just before the day, after we had made all the payments of around £3,500. We don’t have much information on the death, and as sensitive as the problem is, what recourse do we have to recover our cash? As far as we are aware they were operating as a sole trader. TM, Carlisle

Answer: You may be able to settle the outstanding money quickly and simply by contacting the caterer’s estate. If this doesn’t happen, however, you may have to claim back the money through legal action. 

The first thing to do is look at your contract, if you had one, to find out what obligation each party has and the best way to settle the contract. Even if it’s not a written contract, but a verbal one, the same rules apply.

It should have details about what happens if the caterer, or the people employing them (you and your partner), die before the work is conducted.  

While this will be unique to the contract you had, the most common terms are an automatic termination on the death of either party, or the right to terminate, where either party may terminate the contract but it needs to be performed until terminated. 

Although they sound similar there are two key differences. The second example requires the surviving party – you – to take steps to terminate the contract as it won’t happen automatically. You can usually do this by serving a notice to the caterer’s estate or following the termination clause in the contract.  

You should also find details in the contract about what happens to any money already paid out, as in your case. 

It may say that the caterer’s estate can keep any prepayment you’ve already made, even if the obligations were not performed. If it says this, it will limit your ability to claim for breach of contract and get the money you’ve paid out back. 

Yet even if this is the case, statutory and common law control a party’s ability to limit its liability so this doesn’t mean it’s impossible to have the money returned to you.

It might also be considered a ‘frustrated’ contract.

A contract can be terminated on the grounds of frustration if something happens after it’s made which mean it’s no longer possible to finish.

For something to be considered ‘a frustrating event’ it needs to have happened after the contract is entered into, be a fundamental act that strikes at the root of the contract, be no fault of either party, and it needs to make the contract impossible, illegal or radically different from when the parties first entered into the contract. 

You, as the surviving party, could argue that a frustrating event has occurred. This is because, the caterer died after the agreement was formed, the death goes to the root of the contract and was unlikely to be contemplated or foreseeable by the parties at the start of the contract, it was not the fault of either party, and it’s now impossible for food for the wedding to be provided by the caterer. 

If it’s decided that a contract is frustrated it means neither party is obligated to comply with its terms and if any further funding is due it is no longer payable.

Money already paid can also be recovered. This comes if the Law Reform (Frustrated Contracts) Act 1943 (the “Frustrated Contracts Act”) applies. The Frustrated Contracts Act states that money paid before the frustrating event (death) can be recovered.

If this happens the money will need to be paid to you by the caterer’s estate.  

Once you’ve read the contract, especially any clauses dealing with death, frustration or liability, you then need to contact the representatives of the caterer’s estate to see if an agreement can be reached and your money can be refunded. 

If you had wedding insurance, it’s also worth checking your policy to see if you can recover the money through your insurer. 

As a last resort, if you aren’t able to come to an agreement with the estate, you will need to issue a debt claim through the caterer’s estate. Also known as a money claim. You’ll need to pay court fees for doing this which will be around £200.   

Paul Britton, director and solicitor at Britton & Time

About our expert: Paul Britton is a top litigation legal expert and founder of Britton & Time, a multi-award-winning law firm based in Brighton & Mayfair. Paul graduated from the University of Law, Guildford in 2014 and has been qualified as a solicitor since 2017. 

Coming from a multi-legal background, Paul supervises all practice areas at Britton & Time. Paul primarily works on litigation matters, both civil and criminal, family issues, employment matters and landlord and tenant dispute, and continues to act for clients on a variety of matters both from the Brighton & Mayfair office.

Mouthy Money Your Question Answered compiled by Rebecca Goodman

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Perhaps that’s a bit strong – but that “free” money can be financially lethal, if not literally so. To this day, I see it as one of the most irresponsible things any business has ever done to me. Yet, it was commonplace at the time and for that reason I won’t name and shame the lender.

Oh screw it, it was Northern Rock.

I’d been working as a journalist for a national newspaper in London. This time I’m really not going to name names due to sheer embarrassment – the paper used to support the Nazis and is the only paper in the world to be banned as a credible source by Wikipedia. You know the one.

The rabbit hutch I’d been living in near Kensington High Street was being sold and, as a friend of mine – a biscuit designer – lived a short commute away in Brighton (this was before Southern Rail abolished the concept of achievable commutes), I decided to do a bit of sofa surfing on the south coast.

Once more, you’ll notice, I’ve declined to name a name – this time, the biscuit designer’s. I will continue unapologetically in this manner as I have no wish to keep London’s libel lawyers in gin and funny wigs. And if you think the people in this blog post are you, there’s an outside chance you’re wrong. But it’s slim.

I was a card-carrying, flag-waving, ocean-going member of the UK’s large subprime community.

They call Brighton “The Graveyard of Ambition” because when Londoners move there (it’s always Londoners), they never move away. But they carry on working in the capital before eventually getting sick of the unachievable commute and taking much poorer paid jobs locally so they can continue living by the sea.

I was immediately bitten by the Brighton bug and suggested buying a flat with my biscuit designer friend (I’m going to call him ‘Dave’ because I can’t think of any other names). At that point, house prices were rising as quickly as the credit was flowing.

So Dave and I decided to buy a two-bedroom flat together on the sort of whim that might persuade you to change up from Debenhams to Calvin Klein boxer shorts.

They gave us money for nice furniture. A year later we were still watching TV in two fishing chairs.

In terms of risk, I wasn’t 100% prime or even near-prime. I was a card-carrying, flag-waving, ocean-going member of the UK’s large subprime community. I viewed cash machines in the way normal people view fruit machines, whooping with joy on the rare occasions they paid out.

But no-one at the bank seemed to care about my credit-worthiness. In fact, the heart-warmingly generous lending manager reminded us we’d need something to sit on and asked us whether we might want a few extra grand for some nice furniture.

Fast forward a year and we were still watching TV in two fishing chairs – you know the ones with beer holders. There was no nice furniture.

So where had the money gone?

In the mildest of salutes to responsibility, we’d both paid off credit cards – and then started using them again. We’d also shrunk our overdrafts to almost nothing – and then watched as they rebounded enthusiastically into the red.

I asked Dave just yesterday if he remembered how poor we were.

“Don’t be stupid,” he said. “We were loaded; we lived like kings – well, for a while anyway. I was the only biscuit designer in East or West Sussex who had a plasma TV on my bedroom ceiling.”

He really did. No girlfriend – but a plasma on the ceiling. Class.

We also had the most expensive Sky TV package, the fastest broadband, and the most luxurious health club membership. We were living a bit like Withnail and I. Dave was the decadent and devil-may-care ‘Withnail’ and I was ‘I’, the worrier who reluctantly participated in the high life, nonetheless.

But reality soon caught up with us. We began missing payments on bills. Letters from phone companies, banks and credit card companies became a daily occurrence. Honestly, we had more mail than the BBC at one point. Luxury items, like the gym and Sky TV, were cancelled.

Everything turned to shit. You don’t realise how depressing it was until you look back at it.

I remember a particularly sad moment when we both ended our contract with the Grosvenor fine wines club. But the fiscal environment had worsened too. Dark clouds were gathering.

Interest rates had risen and the mortgage repayments, which were variable, climbed sharply. I was forced to change jobs and took a £10k pay cut. Everything turned to shit. You don’t realise how depressing it was until you look back at it. For the next few years, money was a constant worry. And it drove a wedge between Dave and me.

As I’ve implied, Dave was a little bit more irresponsible – or Withnailish – than me and always seemed to owe me money. Communication broke down until it was conducted almost exclusively by half-smudged Post-it notes.

If we’d just rented, like we should have, we wouldn’t have gotten into that mess.

And we *were* in a mess. Dave got really close to bankruptcy and eventually became the shamed-faced owner of an Individual Voluntary Arrangement.

Credit wonks will know what that is but, for the cooler kids, it’s a way of avoiding bankruptcy and involves brokering deals with all your creditors to come up with a single monthly payment that’s shared between them. You commit to pay consistently and, in return, they stop levying interest and charges.

Things took a turn for the (even) worse when Dave moved to Casablanca, saddling me with the whole debt.

What saved me from that was the mortgage holidays we took. Mortgage holidays, you say? Oh yes! You can stop paying your mortgage for a few months. But, of course, that too has its downsides. The interest from the monthly payment you’ve decided to take as a payment holiday gets added to your mortgage. If you’ve ever taken one of these holidays or inquired about them, you’ll have noticed that they add a few pounds a month to your future mortgage payments.

Oh, and then things got even worse. Swaggering like a modern day Humphrey Bogart, Dave literally moved to Casablanca, in Morocco, where the biscuit design industry was booming. He somehow persuaded me to take legal ownership of the whole negative-equity-ridden flat, saddling me with the entire debt.

Helen put a stiletto up my behind and told me to get a proper job.

But, look. I’m still here. I’m a survivor! So how did I pull through?

Love, actually.

Yes, I met my then future and now current wife, Helen, and moved in with her, enabling me to rent out the Money Pit so that it paid for itself. I also got a great job – in Brighton. So much for The Graveyard of Ambition. I think, looking back, that was Helen’s doing too, since she put a stiletto up my behind and told me to get a proper job.

So I was able, slowly, to pay off my debts and now, 14 years later, I owe roughly what the asking price of the house was when we bought it in 2005. But, of course, it’s worth a lot more – about £70k more – and provides a good rental income.

So what did I learn?

First, avoid mortgage holidays. In fact, if you need one – and there’s no serious change in your circumstances – you probably shouldn’t have a mortgage in the first place.

But, actually, you should think about whether a mortgage is right for you in the first place. Renting would almost certainly have suited Dave and me better.

Finally, be careful who you buy with. I don’t mean Northern Rock, in my case. I mean Dave. If you’re going to buy with someone – if you have a Dave or Davina in your life – make sure they’re not the sort of person who thinks a ceiling-mounted plasma TV is cool.

My experiences and the lessons I learned inspired me to pass on that knowledge that now seems embarrassingly obvious – but never was – to others. This was one of the motivations I had when creating Mouthy Money alongside the site’s editor, Amy Rowe.

As you can see (you’re on it now), it’s a money blog – or digital magazine – with some 20 writers telling inspiring stories about their every day money challenges and successes. There’s loads here about mortgages and house buying so, please, take a look around. Touch things, if you really have to. But don’t break anything.

We’re different from the typical money blogger site because we don’t target people who think they need financial advice. Our audience is people who enjoy reading about other people’s lives and learning from their mistakes and successes.

They’re people who hate reading about finance but love reading about people’s financial decisions.

Before I go, I’ll leave you with another quote from Dave. I asked him what advice he might have for people thinking of getting a mortgage.

He thought for a minute, took a swig from what I now imagine to have been a Malibu and Coke and said: “If you can afford it, do it. If you can’t, do it anyway. It’ll be all right in the end.”

And, speaking as Dave’s chief creditor, that is most definitely NOT the moral of this story.

The post Like giving crack to a cocaine addict: my life with a 110% subprime mortgage appeared first on Mouthy Money.

Now, onto the fun bit. These are my 2017 New Year tax resolutions (perhaps I should be making these on April the 6^th instead?):

Get more orderly with receipts

I’m looking at my purse now, and it’s literally bulging with receipts. These are important, and need to be filed away as soon as possible! It’s no good letting these accumulate and get tatty in your purse – straighten them out, staple them together in batches of months and order of dates – otherwise, if you get a surprise visit from the tax man, you’re in trouble! Here are some more handy tips for dealing with receipts.

Record innings and outing as they happen

I used to be very good at this, I don’t know when I started to let it slip. Opening up an Excel spread sheet to update it with £3-10 worth of income may seem incredibly boring and not at all worth while, but you’re saving yourself from a hefty (even more boring) task in the future. When I first started, I used to think of tax records like doing the dishes; you could wash them up as they get dirty, taking a couple of minutes tops or you could wait a week and see them pile up, get rancid, and it takes you a minimum of half an hour – which would you prefer?

Don’t do it at the last minute

Although, in my two years of filling out tax returns, I have never left it until the last minute on January the 31^st, I did fill mine out later this year. A good practice, I think, would be to fill it out in April – then it’s off your mind for a whole year and a half!

Make more money

I believe this point is improving; I’ve almost hit 100 sales in my Etsy shop, managed to licence out my first card design, and have found new streams of income – I just need to keep on working on it!

Especially if it’s your first time, filling out a tax return can be very daunting indeed. Luckily HMRC provides constant support and Webinars to help you along if you get stuck.

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I went through my insurance because I couldn’t afford to pay for the repairs, and they warned me that because it was side damage to my vehicle, I would probably be found at fault or settle partially, as it’s very difficult to prove liability when the side of your car is damaged. I knew this, because I used to work for the collections department of an insurance company. Still, I pursued even though the only evidence we had to go on was the number plate and a vague description of the truck.

Using my combined knowledge from formally working in insurance and also from being involved in a non-fault accident, I thought it might be helpful to write down my top tips for financially surviving a non-fault car accident. Hope it helps:

1. Stay calm. If, like me, you panic, you’ll forget to do something important which could cause you problems in the future. Also, the other person has been in an accident too, so if you stay calm, you can probably sort it reasonably without getting upset. Be clear, calm, and collected.
2. Make a note of the other person’s registration number. Also write down a description of the vehicle and the driver if possible, too. I can’t stress how important it is to have the registration number, otherwise your claim will be dead in the water.
3. If it’s safe, stop to assess. Pull over and assess the damage. If there are any injuries, get medical help. But if there aren’t then just check over the car. If the person who hit you stops, photograph their damage, as well. This will all fit together to help your case.
4. Take statements. If the person who hits you admits fault, ask them to call their insurance company at the roadside to log the claim. If they can’t or won’t, then ask them to write a statement. If there are any witnesses then take their details. Note: In England and Wales, passengers don’t count as independent witnesses, but in Scotland they do. Your insurance company may take a witness statement from a passenger, but they’re not as valuable as someone completely unknown to you.
5. Be clear about your location. You could use Google Maps to pin your location, or take photos of where you are. Make a note of road markings, hazards, and/or obstructions. Could there be CCTV cameras around? That might be useful if the claim is disputed.
6. Create a diagram and a description while it’s all fresh in your mind. Insurers will often ask for your version of events, especially if your claim is disputed by the other driver. Because i’m rubbish at drawing, I used a website called Accident Sketch – you can include all the details on there, too.
7. Always agree to go to court if they ask you. To be honest, these claims rarely reach litigation because it is expensive and the loser pays all the fees. If you refuse to go to court, it looks like you have something to hide.
8. Be persistent with your insurer. In my accident, the truck’s insurance company were very difficult. They didn’t acknowledge the claim for about nine months, then they refused to let my insurance company examine their vehicle. My insurance company contacted me a few times, saying that it was not cost effective and they might drop it. I urged them to continue, and in the end (thankfully) I got a positive result.

Having a car accident is horrible, and hopefully you’ll never have to deal with it. But if you do, and it’s not your fault, hopefully these tips will help you to preserve your no claims bonus and your excess. Stay safe.

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My university experience began in a privately rented house as there were no spaces left in student halls. We were paying just over half of what our halls-living friends were paying! So, myself and five other fresh-faced 18-year-olds bounded into our bargain priced student house which was newly refurbished and needed little attention. Coming from cosy parental homes, experiences such the washing machine falling out of the cupboard every time it went on a spin cycle seemed like the worst thing in the world. We soon learnt that this was not the case.

The house stank. Mould everywhere. Stained mattresses.

The house we took in the second year is where it all started. Six became four and we found ourselves in another bargain property. No, really. This was in Cardiff – which is cheap anyway – but we paid £210 each a month. Madness. There is a reason it was so cheap, as we learned when we opened the door on moving day. The house stank. Mould literally everywhere. We had no hot running water. The boiler had an efficiency rating of G, was 24 years old and heated up the kitchen when we turned it on. The freezer didn’t close so we had to sticky tape the door shut. Springs protruded from the smelly, stained mattresses. Ripped carpets, broken beds, and wonky wardrobes. Half of the lights were dead and the cooker hobs and oven didn’t work. When my friend and I moved in, we cried. In the end, the amount of time and money that we spent fixing stuff, ringing up 0800 numbers to get things sorted. Calling landlords. Calling estate agents. Buying cleaning products. Dry-cleaning mouldy curtains. Not to mention the number of mould-destroyed belongings that we had to throw out. I can’t even total that up but it was a lot. But why? We were paying for a habitable building. Was this habitable? One of the bedrooms was deemed too small for a person to live in so, the following year, the landlords had to rent the property out as a three-bed, so I’m going to say an assertive no to that one. Shameful.

When my friend and I moved in, we cried.

Third year blessed us with another property gem. You may think it was our fault for picking badly but when we viewed the property months before, it seemed fine and the tenants said everything was great. They lied (and told us it was bad when we contacted them a few months later, as the problem got more and more out of hand).

I got the box room that was encased in mould which got into everything I owned. I constantly smelled like mould, my hair, my clothes, urg. My walls were black and smeared but the landlady consistently insisted that the mould was my fault and so was not willing at all to invest in a solution to fix it. I had to throw away clothes, shoes, and bags. My printer became water damaged, and my books went all wrinkly. There was also a fair amount of mould downstairs in the house and, after a LOT of nagging and pictures of said walls, the landlady sent round a mould expert. Once the expert had ascertained that there was indeed a problem, the landlady coughed up and paid for a tumble drier. This cost us a fair bit of money to run but it was worth it to have dry clothes.

When the fridge broke we used our bath as a cooling system for our food.

In the summer, our fridge broke. She bought us a replacement that was half the size of the old one by mistake because she ‘thought fridges were all the same size’. That got returned and we had to wait for another replacement. We went five days without a fridge or freezer so used our bath as a cooling system – filling it with ice cube bags which our landlady refused to contribute to because she insisted that the absence of the fridge was not her fault. There were many other stupid incidents including windows falling off, and sinks breaking but I won’t go on because I think you get the idea. Once again, we lost a lot of money to the mould, and a lot of time trying to reason with an unreasonable (and quite frankly idiotic) landlady. Amazingly, we got all of our deposit back, but not until she tried to charge us for the maintenance of broken fire alarms. A battle which she lost pretty quickly.

What I want to know is why rented housing doesn’t have to be surveyed?

What I want to know is why rented housing doesn’t have to be surveyed? When you sell a house it has to be surveyed and potential buyers are made aware of any problems, so why is this not the case with rented properties? If we had known what we were getting into then I’m sure that we, and many other student house hunters who encounter similar issues, would have paid more (to spend less) and looked harder for a more functional house.

For anybody in the same boat, check out government’s rules around what tenants should expect from private housing.

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