You might want to get some proper legal advice on this, but as far as I know you need to be 18 to enter into a legally binding contract. If this is the case they can't take her to court for breach of contract. I'm surprised the TO accepted her as a lead name even with your letter of permission.

Give Ross Fernihough a call tomorrow on 01922 705134 Ros is a travel law solicitor and will give you free advice.

Am sure something like this has come up before and they had to pay but am not 100% sure so best ring Ros.

Terrible situation for your daughter to be in. It's always a problem for the lead name if anything goes wrong. Poor girl.

From the First Choice website, the minimum age to make a holiday booking with First Choice is 18 years. However, 17-year-olds can book if they have parental consent. Can't understand their willingness to enter into an unenforcible contact, unless giving parental consent involves agreeing to be a guarantor.

As Glynis recommends, you need Ros.

Peter

The best advice has already been given. I think that your letter giving permission will be taken as your agreeing to act as guarantor.

You do however highlight once again the problem of being the lead name for a party of friends. Unfortunately when one or more drops out they cause problems for the others.

fwh

Hi your daughter is liable for it as she was the lead name.
If your daughter cannot pay it .
It may come down to you to pay as you authorised for them to be able to book the holiday by giving your consent in a letter.
I also think if it is not payed they will just send round some debt collectors.

I cannot add any more to the good advice given, but I just wanted to say how sorry you are to be in the middle of this mess.

Might Rachel be able to get some folk to take the places of those who have cried off, or would it be possible for you to go as a family?

All good wishes, and I really hope that the outcome is in your favour.

she will have signed for the low deposit terms on the paperwork when she booked.
now, if its not paid, after about 4 weeks, the holiday will be cancelled and the legal letter will be sent from head office.
now, to be honest, apart from the legal letter, im not sure how far first choice take it to get their money back. head office take control of "low deposit defaulter" bookings, and the shops usually hear nothing more of it once its been cancelled by head office.
they dont even tell us when there going to cancel the bookings. they just get cancelled.

I think that FC are confused it will not be your daughter they take to court as she is underage from the point of view of entering into a legal contract. I think it will be you they issue against as you presumably signed as guarantor. Might be worth checking this as you may be able to get off on a technicality if you didn't.

I would give Ros a ring, not sure how likely FC are to persue the balance of the deposit, but it may just be easier to pay up. Unfortuantely the lead name or the leads guarantor is liable when others pull out.

I might be missing something here but if only 4 of the 8 booked had paid the low deposit I can't see how the other 4 have a contract at all, how can a booking be made if sufficient deposit, even if its a low one, hasn't been paid?

As Rachel advised on booking that her friends would be coming in to pay their share and they didn't then surely whoever this was booked with must take some responsibility for accepting a booking without the minimum deposit if that's the case.

The contract is made with the lead name on the booking who will be responsible for paying the balance of the low deposits, and the balance of the holiday.

The responsibility is always with the lead booking name and it will be in the small print in the terms and conditions of the booking. I used to work for FC and had a similar problem with a party of 7 boys going to Ibiza. 3 or 4 of them dropped out and it was left to the lead booking person to either pay up or find some others who could/would travel. Fortunately for him he managed to find replacements for I think 2 of them but was left to pay for at least one of the party.

Hope you get it sorted soon.

PS I really wish TAs and TOs would scrap this low deposit scheme. So many people get caught out by this not realising even if the cancel they have to pay the balance of the deposit.

I think if you signed for your daughter then your daughter is ok to go but if any of the other girls are 17 then surely they need written permission too!
I'm sure a 17 year old would need their own parents written concent!

Also I think your daughter should try and get the girls who have dropped out to pay as to be fair it's their fault! Just explain that because they've dropped out the low deposit becomes a bigger one! If they really are friends then they will try and sort it!

The contract is made with the lead name on the booking who will be responsible for paying the balance of the low deposits, and the balance of the holiday.

Yes I understand that but the opening post says that 4 of the girls went in and paid a low deposit and the names of the others was given for them to call in and pay later but they changed their minds and didn't bother. I can't see how the booking could have gone ahead when insufficient deposit had been paid, surely the system wouldnt let it?

I know the last time I booked via a travel agent (on impulse) I found I didn't have my credit card with me and as I was changing banks I didn't have any other means of payment so I gave her all the cash I had and she was only able to do a provisional booking for an hour to enable me to go home and get my card, she told me at the time she wasn't supposed to do this just in case I didn't return.

I had a very similar situation with my daughter and a party of her friends. This was with co-op travel who sent my daughter a very similar letter, I dug my heels in and refused point blank to pay what they were requesting and luckily, they rescinded the agreement and we did not have to pay. Good luck!

When my under 18 daughter booked her forthcoming holiday with her under 18 friend, we the parents had to give our consent to them going in writing.Her friend, who WILL be 18 at the time of travel ,had to be the lead name according to the travel agent. We drew up our own "contract" with the friend's mother that said that she would be responsible for the balance of her low deposit and the final deposit before departure. Also that she would be liable for our costs should she cancel as our daughter would not be able to travel being under 18 on the day of departure.

I know that your daughter did not pay the deposits for the others who were yet to come in but she must have signed/agreed to the contract for them to travel. Maybe in law that counted as intent If they had any decency they would write it off but I do think that,as others have said, you need specialist advice from someone like Ros.

A very dodgy area, you definitely need to speak to someone like Ros.
My daughter and niece booked to go on a holiday with 2 male work colleagues - seperate rooms, but the TA decided that they could share a 4 bedded room. There were lots of objections and big falling outs. No one could get definite info as they were not the lead name. When I got involved and went to the TA to try and get my daughters deposit switched to another holiday due to the very material change, we found out that the "lead name" had been in and cancelled the holiday a couple of weeks before, forfeiting all the already paid (full) deposits for everybody and there was nothing we could do.
I still don't use that TA even though the offices have been taken over by someone else.

There was also a thread not long back about a young girls' holiday where the lead name decided that the friend was no longer welcome on the already paid for holiday and it was too late to get anything back from the TA on a cancellation. That raised a few nasty issues and the spectre of court orders etc.

Same daughter also caused me a few problems with a distant gym membership when her cousin was asked to coutersign the application form as an adult over 18. As we all know, but she didn't, it was an agreement to be guarantor in the event of non payment.
My daughter lost her lift and so could no longer use the gym but despite the fact the cousin had not been told she was being guarantor, we could not prove it and so the contract was binding. I had to buy my daughter's way out.
Strangely enough it was not the Finance company or the gym, who were willing to cancel the contract due to the dubious practises, but the company (with the dubious business practises) the gym had employed to increase their business refused to let the Finance company cancel the agreement. This was despite Trading Standards having many similar complaints about the same practise from the same company.

As advised, seek early legal advice.

Thank you all very much for your replies and advice.Rang Ros on the telephone number given and they were brill.Advised me not to pay at this moment but posting all paper work and brochure tomorrow for the solicitors to have a look.Once again thank you :o)

Hi hope you get the right result good luck.

Thanks for coming back to update us cerievs. Ros will keep you right and we would appreciate if you could post the outcome.

luci

Thanks for coming back to update us. Good Luck and hope it gets sorted. Please let us know what happens.

Doe