I was pressured into signing a contract... It was high

Hello. I am Ed, a Solicitor qualified in England and Wales with over a decade’s experience in the legal profession advising clients.

I specialise in Commercial Contracts, Business Transactions, Employment, Dispute Resolution, Personal Injury and Road Traffic Law and shall be reviewing your legal problem today.

I shall be delighted to talk with you by phone to discuss your issue in greater detail if you accept the site’s automatic offer of a Premium Service Phone Call.

I am sorry that you are facing a potential dispute as a result of unfair a high pressure sales tactics but hopefully I can assist you in resolving the matter before it escalates and you are forced to incur significant further legal costs.

As this appears to be a “business-to-consumer” (as opposed to a “business-to-business”) contract that was sold to you online, the “distance selling” regulations will apply to the contract and you as a customer have enhanced rights to reject and return your products.

You have a “cooling-off” period of at least 14 days from purchase to reject and return the goods on a “no questions asked” basis as long as they have not used the service.

You must deny the claim on the basis that the supplier is in breach of contract and/or in breach of the sale and supply of goods and services legislation as they have failed to provide the goods and services contracted for and described at the point of sale.   Therefore, the failure is on the part of the supplier, and you are not liable for the amount claimed.

If the supplier claims the monies as a debt, you must deny the debt and state the monies claimed are a disputed damages claim. The supplier will have to issue contested Part 7 Court Proceedings for damages for debt and/or breach of contract plus interest and legal costs as opposed to following the undisputed debt recovery route of serving you with a Statutory Demand for repayment in the debt in full within 21 days prior to filing a court petition for your Bankruptcy.

Thereafter, you are in a bit of a tricky spot. If you refuse to pay up, the supplier may pursue you for damages through the Civil County Courts. However, the onus will be on the Claimant to enforce their legal rights against you. Whether or not they take any action is up to them. I cannot advise you directly upon whether the Claimant will in fact take any recovery action against you as I do not know what is in their minds.

In addition, the amount claimed of £4,000 is comfortably within the Small Claims Track threshold of £10,000 damages.   Even if the Claimant issues Court Proceedings against you for this amount, plus interest, and wins at a fully contested Trial, they are unlikely to be awarded their legal adviser’s costs of the Claim. Legal advisers’ costs are generally not recoverable in the Small Claims Court: only Court fees for issuing the Claim and for the Final Hearing.

Nevertheless, the Claimant may be well-versed in such low-value recovery action against defaulting customers or may be able to instruct legal advisers for a low fixed fee to litigate the entire Court Proceedings on its behalf making it economic to claim against you.

I suggest negotiating a discontinuance of the contract and outstanding fees on mutually agreeable terms with the Claimant.

I hope this is a satisfactory initial reply to your question and you understand my recommendations. Please revert to me if you do not understand anything and require clarification of my answer and I shall be delighted to assist.

I can also offer a Premium Service Consultation for an additional fee if you need detailed and bespoke legal advice. If you accept, I will pass you my direct email address and phone number. I can review any relevant documentation and consult with you by telephone for around 20 minutes. This will give you a clearer picture of your legal position and your potential options for progressing the matter to the next stage.

Kind regards

LawyerEd