Paid means owed: the service or the money. Speak to Kestrel.
A paid-for service must be delivered with reasonable care and skill and within a reasonable time. Non-delivery entitles you to your money back; part-delivery to a price reduction reflecting what you actually received. Deposits for nothing are recoverable, card payments unlock section 75 and chargeback, and the small claims court handles the refusals. Silence from the trader changes nothing about the debt.
The Consumer Rights Act implies terms into every consumer service contract: reasonable care and skill, a reasonable time where none is fixed, and a reasonable price where none is agreed. A trader who takes payment and does not perform is in breach, and repeat performance or a price reduction, up to the full amount, are your statutory remedies.
Where a completion date was essential, missing it can let you treat the contract as ended and demand repayment. Where the trader simply goes quiet, a written deadline making time essential converts drift into breach. Prepayments and deposits for undelivered services are recoverable as money had and received.
Card protections run alongside: credit card payments over £100 engage section 75 joint liability, and debit cards carry chargeback through the bank. Where the trader is a company heading for insolvency, the card routes and speed matter more than the letter.
Guide edition: August 2026. General information for England and Wales. Current law and your particular facts require assessment before action.
The booking, the payment, what was promised for when, and the silence or excuses since. One tidy chronology.
A written demand: perform by a fixed date or refund in full. This makes time essential and sets up every later step.
Section 75 or chargeback with the same chronology attached. Often the fastest money back, especially against shaky traders.
Letter before claim, then issue online. Undelivered-service cases are short hearings with clean arithmetic.
Tell Kestrel what happened. The AI legal assistant gathers the facts and prepares a summary for you to check. Request lawyer review from your Legal Centre.
Speak to Kestrel nowSix years for contract claims. Chargeback windows are short, often 120 days from when the service should have been delivered, so the card route opens first, not last.
This guide concerns Consumer disputes. It forms part of our reference library. Kestrel is preparing for SRA authorisation. See practice details for the proposed service and current availability.
Deadline letter now, card claims now, and a replacement supplier documented: the price difference joins the claim. Event cases carry real consequential losses and courts treat ghosting badly.
Then the remedy is a price reduction to what the delivered part was genuinely worth, refunding the rest. Your evidence of what was promised against what arrived sets the number.
Delay caused by genuine lack of access or decisions can extend a reasonable time; delay dressed up as your fault does not. The message history usually shows who was chasing whom, which is why it is kept.
Move immediately on the card routes: section 75 survives the trader's insolvency and chargeback often does. A county court claim against a dissolved company is worth little, so the sequencing here is everything.
Start with the AI legal assistant, then follow the case, messages and lawyer review in your Legal Centre.
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