My husband is a self employed driving instructor (40 years)

Kindly give me a minute I am presently reviewing your question to provide a written response here.

Hi again Chris, thanks for your patience and enquiry. This is most certainly a difficult one. I have checked whether there were any government guideline’s during the time as to how this issue was to be treated with. There does not seem to be any. As such, I cannot see where the government did say one way or the other whether this fee ought to have been cancelled.

If the government was silent in relation to this. The other recourse would be to have a look at the franchising agreement he would have signed to see whether any special provision as made there with respect to how situations such as these would be treated with. I suspect it too may be silent, particularly as Covid was not a crisis that before it happened would have been in anyone’s contemplation. Usually though contracts deal with issues to do with a contract being ‘frustrated’ due to unplanned for events. This is the specific clause you should be looking for.

Outside of either of the above, he would have to take the matter to court for it to make a declaration as to whether he would legally be required to pay in light of what happened. This is an untested area of the law. Because of the events, it is unlikely that there would be decided cases on how issues such as these would be treated with. As such, if he is of the view that he should not be legally required to pay, then it would be a matter for him to take to court.