Where do I stand...legally?

[No Delay]

I am a CFII. I own my own plane and run my own little business. I mainly teach 10 day instrument courses. I have run into a bit of a situation and wanted to get some feedback / advice.

I had a student purchase an instrument course from me. I blocked out the schedule for the airplane and myself. Two weeks before he was scheduled to come in for training he called and said something came up and he needed to reschedule. I told him that was fine and I would work with him. He gave me a tentative date that he could do it. About a month went by and he called to reschedule again. After rescheduling, he called back a week later and said it was going to be a 6 months or so before he could do the training and wanted to know if he could get a refund.

Now, I want to be fair. But each time I block out my schedule I lose money. I only schedule one student at a time. I didn't schedule other students because I thought he was coming.

I was thinking about refunding half. Is that fair? Where do I stand legally? My thinking is that I sold him a training course. I have worked to accommodate him. He failed to take the training.

Any thoughts?

 

[350DRIVER]

That is a hard call that would depend on many circumstances.. Is he really wanting to come back in six months?. What is his story?. Is he willing to only get half back right now with the remainder being used to hold him a spot?. etc, etc, etc. If it were me and the guy was young, college student, etc, that was just scraping by then I probably would give him a full refund and chalk it up as a learning experience and come up with something to minimize this loss potential for future business transactions. If he has no intention of ever doing the course then he probably will want a full refund anyways. If he does indeed plan to do it 6 months from now then see if you can hold half of the amount as a "reservation" fee to hold the spot. Use your imagination but if he is determined to not go with you then you possibly may be faced with a lawsuit at some point if you refuse, add in the legal fees for representation, etc, then you are really going to be in a bind. Sometimes it is easier to just take the loss and minimize future problems.


hard one to call without knowing all the facts. I feel your pain though since it was probably a decent amount of money.

good luck,

3 5 0

 

[JimNtexas]

I have no idea what the law is, but it seems to me that if you have twice blocked out ten day windows for this client, then at a minimum you are entitled to ten days pay.

Since you didn't utilize your airplane it would reasonable for you to refund the part of his payment that would have gone to operating your airplane.

Bottom line: You should be "made whole" by withholding the part of his deposit that represents payment for you services.

Your time is your most perishable commodity.

 

[FN FAL]

I have no idea what the law is, but it seems to me that if you have twice blocked out ten day windows for this client, then at a minimum you are entitled to ten days pay.

Since you didn't utilize your airplane it would reasonable for you to refund the part of his payment that would have gone to operating your airplane.

Bottom line: You should be "made whole" by withholding the part of his deposit that represents payment for you services.

Your time is your most perishable commodity.

sounds like a plan to me. Time is money and this guy robbed you of time you could have spent with other students.

 

[Vik]

I'm with some of the others .. What sort of written agreement do you have?

If you don't have one, give him all his money back, type up a written contract immediately, and chalk up the loss to waiting this long in the game to have a written contract.

I think every independant CFI, consultant, painter, what have you, needs a written contract.

Vik

I am a CFII. I own my own plane and run my own little business. I mainly teach 10 day instrument courses. I have run into a bit of a situation and wanted to get some feedback / advice.

I had a student purchase an instrument course from me. I blocked out the schedule for the airplane and myself. Two weeks before he was scheduled to come in for training he called and said something came up and he needed to reschedule. I told him that was fine and I would work with him. He gave me a tentative date that he could do it. About a month went by and he called to reschedule again. After rescheduling, he called back a week later and said it was going to be a 6 months or so before he could do the training and wanted to know if he could get a refund.

Now, I want to be fair. But each time I block out my schedule I lose money. I only schedule one student at a time. I didn't schedule other students because I thought he was coming.

I was thinking about refunding half. Is that fair? Where do I stand legally? My thinking is that I sold him a training course. I have worked to accommodate him. He failed to take the training.

Any thoughts?

 

[80/20]

If you don’t have an agreement I would suggest:

Continue your search to find the “fair industry standard for this”. Include some contracts used by training centers which typically will have a non-refundable deposit and a higher price to pay for last minute changes.

I would share this information with the student and ask him to come up with a suggestion on how to handle this. He might come back with a workable suggestion. If not, just hold back what you will lose because of this (be fair!). If he takes you to court you simply have to consider cost/benefit/risk of seeking legal council or going to court and reconsider if you should give him 100% refund before you pass the point of no return.

 

[jackotron]

I am currently on the other side of this (but a slightly different situation).

I started with Part 61 training in March. The first month went great! 4 flights a week. By the end of the month I had allotted 25 hours. I was meeting the PTS for my check ride it was turning out wonderfully.



The months that followed the CFI canceled every other flight (because he had another job with other demands). The second month I had about 10 hours of solo time with little progress (in fact I believe that I became worse).



The next month he couldn't fly at all. The month after that I had about 3 dual lessons and a solo cross-county. Brining my total to roughly 43 hours.



Now here I am. My maneuvers are well below PTS, I do not stand a chance up against a check ride. $6000+ in the hole and nothing to show for it. I feel really screwed. Now I have to move to another town (where I can go to a 141 school) and fly a 152 instead of the PA-28.



I want my money back. I understand that the plane was used and that fuel was burned and that some guy spent one month of great instruction with me. But to what end? I have nothing to so for this. Any suggestions?