Mariners and Consumer rights.

[anthony]

Hi everyone.

I have had my boat on hardstanding for a month now while doing work on it.

It has become obvious to me over this month that people who own marinas seem to think how things work in their world has no effect in the real world.

I received an invoice today for 3 months hardstanding to be paid three months in advance.

I never areed to these terms and dont intend on being on hard standing for another 3 months.

I think paying a month in advance is reasonable but not three months in advance.

The invoice goes on to say if the amount is not payed in full by the 31st of this month or by monthly standing order a ten percent charge will be added!

Is this legal?

I asked for a receipt for the boat over 2 weeks ago.

Does this mean as I dont have the recipt ive been working on a boat that is still owned by someone else?

Should I ask for a receipt yet again or should i request it formally stating there will be x amount charged if I have to keep asking?

Is this legal?

Thanks.

Edited March 22, 2007 by anthony

[chris w]

In the absence of a written contract, the terms are what was understood between the parties or expressed verbally at the time. These carry full legal authority but, of course, are hard to prove.

 

Terms cannot be added after the contract starts without mutual consent of the parties. A classic example of this is where it used to be commonplace to print the terms of an NCP carpark on the back of the ticket.

 

In order to read them, one had to first buy the ticket...............that was the start of the contract so the terms on the back were therefore added after the contract began and thus carried no validity. There was a test case on this when someone's car was damaged in an NCP carpark and the back of the ticket stated that NCP held no responsibility for damage. This was overturned in court as the terms were held to be invalid as they were not available before buying the ticket. They now publish the terms at the ticket machine - try sitting there reading them before taking a ticket..... you'lll be very popular with the queue.

 

Chris