Dealing with unexpected

Once you’ve signed your deal, how easy is it to change?

The unexpected has a nasty way of cropping up, so apart from instant one-off transactions, your contracts, agreements and T&C need to include a clear mechanism allowing the buyer and seller to tweak the details.

But what if it says nothing?

In a consumer champion page of an English newspaper, a student had booked long-term accommodation in Canada through an online accommodation platform. Everything was booked and ready, until the host decided to ramp up the price. Although it was finally resolved by the newspaper’s intervention, it got me thinking whether users really understand changes in contracts.

The key question here, which the newspaper didn’t answer was, can the host enforce a unilateral change?

Well… it depends what the contract says. Having reviewed the platform’s nearly 12,000 words of terms, and without trawling through the additional 50 sets of terms that might apply, all I could find relating to changes to the booking was this:

Hosts and Guests are responsible for any booking modifications they agree to make

The terms don’t say what those modifications can be or how they should be agreed and made. There is neither a clear process – including time limits on when changes can be proposed – nor any restrictions on what the host or guest can propose.

As a guest, you wouldn’t expect (and certainly don’t want) last minute price increases, unexpected cleaning fees or booking charges. In fact, under English law, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 requires all charges to be transparent from the start, so you should never be charged for ‘extras’.

If there is no process in the contract then the host and guest have to stick with the original booking. If either of them wants to change it, then English law requires you to agree to end the original agreement and create a new one. It is not possible for one party to enforce changes on the other without their consent.