If a restaurant is booked and upon arrival it is communicated that the kitchen is closed, are potential damages entitled to be claimed? It's a hypothetical question: Let's say you booked a table via an online reservation system (from the restaurant's website) for a romantic dinner with your partner from 7:30-9 PM. The online reservation form has fields for &quot;time&quot;, &quot;name&quot;, &quot;phone number&quot;, and &quot;message/special requests&quot;. You leave a message under the messages section that you are going to arrive around 8-8:15 PM. The reservation is getting confirmed a few minutes after the reservation. You are arriving at the restaurant at exactly 8 PM and the cashier says: &quot;Oh, sorry, we closed the kitchen! We can't serve you today! Only take away!&quot;. Do you have any right here to complain? BTW, even though the case was in Sweden, I believe my question was a bit more general.
In general, &quot;making a reservation&quot; does not create a contract, except when it is obvious that you have a contractual agreement. That would be the case with an airline reservation, and one clear sign is that you have to pay for the ticket when you make the reservation; or, it you don't, then there is no contract, and they can cancel or change the price. You would look for clear signs of an agreement, such as a &quot;agree to terms&quot; button that you have to click. Paying a deposit is another clear sign. Then you would simply look at the terms of the contract to see what their obligation is, and what yours is. They may have strongly committed to providing service in which case you might have a cause for legal action if they break that commitment, or they might have made no specific promises about service in case of intervening events (such as if the chef has a heart attack, or the power goes out). If we do think of this as a contractual matter, you breached your duty as a customer, to be there by 7:30, so even if there is a contract, they didn't break it. The note that you added renegotiating the arrival time was insufficient – it is outside of the contract, and possibly something that they didn't see (they only look at the names and official time blocks reported by the web page). In lieu of a contract, there could be some statutory obligation, i.e. a specific regulation in Sweden saying &quot;if a restaurant accepts a reservation, they absolutely must hold the space available for the entire reserved time&quot;, which is an unreasonably onerous business practice that no nation requires.
The retailer You can try making a subject access request under Articles 15(1) and 15(3) of the UK GDPR. Provide as much information as you can (your name, date of purchase, store you purchased it from, copy of the receipt, etc.) and ask for the serial number. If they still have it, and it is stored in a way which is linked to you in an identifiable way, then they are obliged to provide it without undue delay (and in any event within 30 days). You may want to provide a copy of your passport in the request to pre-empt them coming back with an ID check request under Article 12(6), which then allows them to delay processing the request until you have replied. As stated above, if they no longer have the data or you are not identifiable from the data then they do not have to provide it. If they do have to provide it but refuse then you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office or ask the County Court for a compliance order under section 167 of the Data Protection Act 2018. The insurer Regulation 3(1) of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 prohibits &quot;unfair commercial practices&quot;. Regulation 3(4) provides that a commerical practice is unfair if, inter alia, it is listed in Schedule 1. Paragraph 27 of Schedule 1 contains the following item: Requiring a consumer who wishes to claim on an insurance policy to produce documents which could not reasonably be considered relevant as to whether the claim was valid, or failing systematically to respond to pertinent correspondence, in order to dissuade a consumer from exercising his contractual rights. As you've provided proof that you purchased the item, you can try to argue that having the serial number of the lost item can not &quot;reasonably be considered relevant&quot;. Yes, the contract says that you must provide it, but consumer rights legislation overrides contractual provisions. You may also want to consider dealing with the insurer by email/post instead of by phone, (a) to avoid continuing to waste time on hold, and (b) because if they systematically fail to respond then this may also cause them to be in breach of the above provision, (c) to acquire evidence which you can use later. Escalating If you get no results from the insurer, make a formal complaint to them through their complaints process. Under the FCA Handbook rule DISP 1.3.1R, the insurer is required to provide a complaints procedure. Under rule DISP 1.6.2R they are required to provide a final response to a complaint within 8 weeks. If you are not happy with the response, you can escalate the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service which has the power to make financial awards pursuant to section 229 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (&quot;FSMA&quot;). Doing so is free of charge and is therefore a good alternative to going to court. The ombudsman can also make awards that are not strictly based on law (i.e. they can go further than the courts can) because of section 228 of FSMA which provides that: &quot;A complaint is to be determined by reference to what is, in the opinion of the ombudsman, fair and reasonable in all the circumstances of the case.&quot; You must generally escalate a complaint to the Ombudsman within 6 months of receiving your final response from the insurer (rule DISP 2.8.2R).
As far as I know, no jurisdiction in the US relieves a person of their contractual lease obligations when they are required by law to leave the country. However, many (perhaps most) states require the landlord to make an effort to re-rent an abandoned unit, which reduces the size of the tenant's liability. Unless the landlord just gives up on the claim for $8K, you would have that liability, which could be collected through legal process. The landlord might do this in her jurisdiction, which would no doubt result in a default judgment (because you won't show up). Theoretically, she could also pursue you in your home country, but that is much more complicated, expensive, and subject to whatever discretionary dim view the local courts have of US immigration law, or other tenant-related laws (the courts would have to conclude that there was a wrong by the standards of that country). A variant of suing you in your home country is suing you in the US and having the judgment enforced in the foreign country, but that against depends on the legal system of that country and treaties between the country and the US. Since visitor visas are a highly discretionary legal entitlement, it's impossible to say &quot;won't&quot; w.r.t. the question of whether a visa application will be denied because of an unpaid monetary judgment. It's also impossible to say &quot;won't&quot; because the law can change at any time. With those caveats, there does not appear to be any concrete reason to believe that a visitor visa will be denied because you skipped out on a lease. A visa can be denied and one can be perma-banned for lying on interview questions, so the hope is that there isn't a question &quot;do you have any money judgments against you in the US&quot;.
No If you breach the contract that may allow the rental company to terminate it (among other things), however, termination would need to be communicated to the customer. Only if they kept it after that, with the intention of permanently depriving the company of it, are they stealing it.
Don't trivialize this because it appears to be minor and inexpensive. If something goes wrong, you could be liable for damage. You should have an idea of what a reasonable cost should be based on the rent and condition of the property. Discuss it with the landlord. If the landlord chooses to fix it, you should have something in writing, signed by both you and the landlord, acknowledging that you aren't responsible for reimbursing the landlord for the cost or acknowledging receipt by the landlord of any contribution from you and a statement that the contribution fulfills your lease requirement. If you're going to fix it, you should have something in writing, signed by both you and the landlord, agreeing to the choice of replacement parts and the choice of anyone you hire to do the work. It might be nice to think you can save money by doing it yourself. But if anything happens and there's damage, you could be liable. You should have renter's insurance. You should check your renter's insurance policy to see what, if anything, it says about tenant responsibility for repairs. Your insurance might pay for it. More importantly, will your insurance protect you if something goes wrong and there's damage? I recommend you copy this and modify it as you see fit or, if you don't this is correct, make up something that you think is correct. Keep an electronic copy on your computer. But also have a notebook in which you keep how-to papers, so you don't have to figure it out all over again at some time in the future and to use the how-tos you accumulate to help you make new how-tos as necessary. Also keep documentation, especially warranties. Scan receipts (receipt ink is notorious for fading over time) and warranties, keep them the electronic copies on your computer and print the receipts and put the printed receipts and original receipts with the warranty papers in the notebook. Keep a manilla envelope with receipts, warranties, instructions, and any papers you receive from anyone you hire to do the work. When you move out, you should give the envelope to the landlord so the landlord will be able to maintain what was installed and obtain warranty service if necessary.
If you have no contract to provide the service then you have no obligation under contract law to do so. However, if you are aware that withdrawing the service could or would cause damage to their business then doing so may leave you open to a suit on the basis of negligence; particularly if you do so precipitously and without warning. You should write to them in the following terms: Despite our agreement that the contract would not be renewed you have not made any arrangements to stop using my service. Consequently I consider that by your actions, you have continued to treat the contract as ongoing. I am happy for this arrangement to continue on a month-by-month basis and will be invoicing accordingly. If this is acceptable, please respond by 4pm on x/y/z; if you do not do so I will switch the service off at 4pm on x/y+2/z
While @jqning is absolutely correct in stating that truth is always an "absolute defense" to a claim of defamation, keep in mind that truth can be a subjective thing. What is one person's version of the truth, may not be another's, even with regard to the same exact experience. Also, while "statements of opinion are not defamation" is typically regarded as true, it has very broad exceptions and is not something that can be relied on in isolation. Defamation is generally defined as a false, published statement that is injurious to the plaintiff's reputation. An online posting, even on an obscure website, will likely be seen by a few people, thus satisfying the publication requirement. A plaintiff cannot succeed in his or her online defamation claim if the defendant's defamatory statement is true. So, for example, if a customer posts a review of your restaurant on Trip Advisor claiming that there were roaches crawling around, you may sue them for defamation. You would then have to prove that there was no roach infestation, and thus, the defendant's statement was false. However, what if there was only one? What if he has a witness who saw it? His truth may be different from yours, and it is up to the trier of fact to decide. Also, getting sued, whether or not you prevail, is at minimum a pain and can be a very expensive ordeal. Opinions are exempt? OK: Following that line of reasoning, restaurant owner shows he's had monthly inspections and prophylactic measures to ensure against pests and the exterminator testifies. The defendant, fearing he's in trouble now, claims that his assertion of roach infestation was just his opinion based on his experience. Opinions are privileged under the law of defamation, right? Not always! Importantly, an opinion may be viewed, generally, as a statement of fact (employing the "reasonable person" standard) if it is something that is either provable or disprovable. What this means is that if the reasonable person would construe your statement to be factual, and not mere opinion, it will be deemed as such and if untrue then you're liable for defamation. The courts may interpret, "I think that [restaurant] has a roach infestation problem," as a statement of fact. This has occurred in numerous cases where people think they can say what they want as long as they couch it as an opinion, with words like "I think..." or "In my opinion...". But when someone says something that factual in opinion form, that is not protected. So, if Jane says, "In my opinion Joe Schmoe is a pedophile..." without absolute proof that Joe is, in fact, a pedophile, then this is libelous (defamation if published or spoken to another). This is because the statement in and of itself is one of "verifiable fact couched in opinion" and it is so damaging to Joe's reputation that if it's not true it is libel per se (defamatory if published &ndash; meaning shared). A statement of verifiable fact is a statement that conveys a provably false factual assertion, such as someone has committed murder or has cheated on his spouse. While the law varies some, and sometimes substantially, from state to state, here are some often used examples arising from California courts. Libelous (when false): Charging someone with being a communist (in 1959) Calling an attorney a "crook" Describing a woman as a call girl Accusing a minister of unethical conduct Accusing a father of violating the confidence of son Not-libelous: Calling a political foe a "thief" and "liar" in chance encounter (because hyperbole in context) Calling a TV show participant a "local loser," "chicken butt" and "big skank" Calling someone a "bitch" or a "son of a bitch" Changing product code name from "Carl Sagan" to "Butt Head Astronomer" Since libel is considered in context, do not take these examples to be a hard and fast rule about particular phrases. Generally, the non-libelous examples are hyperbole or opinion, while the libelous statements are stating a defamatory fact. Modified photos that can be shown to scandalize persons or businesses are clearly defamation, and are quite popular on social media. So, for example, if you threw the flyers (I assume you didn't but as an example) all over, and then photographed and published your opinion about the business littering neighborhoods, this would be libelous. The less obvious and absurd the modification, the more likely it is that a court will find it defamatory. So, a picture of a woman with a man's naked torso photoshopped on will not be defamatory, a version photoshopped showing what is to be purported to be her naked body, is. In your case, you face two issues that you should ask yourself: Is your opinion really verifiable (or non-verifiable) facts couched in words that try to make it opinion, or is it truly just your opinion. If fact, is it absolutely true? If the answer is yes, it's fact and yes, it's absolutely true, you're OK. Keep in mind though what I mentioned about truths differing: What if the business didn't know they were put there, or, what if they were placed on cars in a public place and blew in the wind? That could be a problem. While you are most likely fine, you may want to just say, X business's fliers are all over the place, littering the neighborhood and (assuming you called and asked them to pick them up, or wrote them) they refuse to pick up the litter. It sounds like the statements you made are fine, because you don't say that the business littered, or that they put them there; you say they are "plastered" all over, but you don't accuse them openly. That isn't to say it wouldn't be found to suggest fact that they would have to show isn't true (or that they didn't get permission from the property owner). My point is only that, in general, be careful. If he felt that you misrepresented what he did by way of distributing fliers, or if he thought you doctored the photo or set it up, he could sue you if he felt it damaged his business's reputation.
Let's analyse the landlord's claims: You have an assured shorthold tenancy agreement. The fact that there isn't a written contract doesn't change this as a verbal agreement is legally binding. That's true. A tenancy exists even if this was never written down, and it's an AST by default if the requirements for being one are met. Payment of rent constitutes acceptance of these terms. Payment of rent by the tenant, and its acceptance by the landlord, is sufficient for a tenancy to be regarded as existing. The tenancy can only be terminated early from the permission of the landlord. That's rubbish. A tenant can always end a tenancy, but there may be restrictions. In particular, a tenant cannot end a tenancy before the end of a fixed term without the agreement of the landlord, but the landlord has an obligation to find new tenants if this happens. However, I've been unable to find any information as to whether a fixed term exists if there's no written agreement. Assuming there is no fixed term, then for a month-to-month tenancy, the tenant must provide one month's notice to end the tenancy, with that month ending at the end of a rental period (i.e. the day before the next payment would be due). If you leave early this is legally abandonment and you are still responsible for paying rent for the duration of the tenancy That's true. ... if you do leave next month I'll consider you in rent arrears and pursue payment through legal means That is possible - but if you give notice as described above, then the tenancy will end, and (assuming you're up to date with the rent) you'll no longer be liable.