The ‘generous’ seats on our luxury coach trip were cramped and next to the loo – do we have a claim? DEAN DUNHAM KC replies
We booked a two week luxury coach holiday to Italy.
In the brochure, the seats were advertised as being ‘generous’ and ‘32 per cent bigger than those on budget airlines’.
However, the seats my wife and I were allocated were by the side door and had much less legroom than anyone else, which was very uncomfortable.
They were also right next to the toilet. Can we make a claim against the company?
A.M. By email.
Bog standard: A couple were less than impressed with the supposedly ‘generous’ coach seats they’d booked for a trip to Italy
Dean Dunham replies: You may well have a claim. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 says that when you buy a service, it must be performed with reasonable care and skill.
It must also match any claims the trader made, which you relied upon when you decided to book the holiday.
The brochure’s promises of generous seating form part of your contract. If the reality fell materially short, the service wasn’t as described and you’re entitled to a remedy.
Typically, this involves a repeat performance or, more realistically, a price reduction reflecting the shortfall.
There’s a second string to your bow. That eye-catching assertion that the seats were 32 per cent bigger than those on budget airlines is a measurable, factual claim, not vague sales puff.
Under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCC), a trader must not give false information or create a misleading overall impression to encourage customers to book.
If your seats were demonstrably not 32 per cent bigger, that’s a potential misleading action.
The regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), has real teeth. The toilet proximity and cramped legroom only strengthen the picture, painting a clear gap between the luxury experience sold and the discomfort experienced over a fortnight.
Write to the company citing the Consumer Rights Act 2015, setting out the mismatch between the brochure and reality.
Attach photographs of your seats, the door and the toilet, plus the brochure page. Request a partial refund proportionate to two weeks of discomfort.
If the firm rejects your claim or ignores you, write again and say you are going to report the matter to the CMA due to the breach of the DMCC. If you paid by card, make a chargeback or
Section 75 claim on the basis that there has been a breach of contract due to the misleading information.
Neighbour’s scaffolding blocks my parking space
My house has an alleyway down the side and, at the end, is the space where I park my car.
Yesterday, I found my neighbour had put up scaffolding in the alley to do work on their house.
My car was blocked in and I had to cancel an important meeting.
The neighbours have moved out while the work is being done so I called the police and council but they said there is nothing they can do. What is my next course of action?
P.C., address supplied.
Dean Dunham replies: The key to your problem lies in one crucial legal concept: a right of way.
The police were correct that this is a civil matter. But that doesn’t leave you powerless – quite the opposite.
If you have used that alleyway to reach your parking space for years, the law very likely recognises a right of way over it.
This might be written expressly into your title deeds, or it may have arisen simply through long, uninterrupted use, creating what lawyers call a prescriptive easement.
Either way, it grants you a legal right to pass and repass to reach your land.
Blocking a right of way is an interference with an easement, which amounts to a civil wrong, known as nuisance.
Your neighbour is not entitled to erect scaffolding that stops you exercising that right. Their convenience does not trump your access.
First, check your deeds for any right of way, then write to your neighbours and their contractor, stating that the scaffolding is obstructing your legal right of access and requiring its removal or repositioning.
Keep evidence, including photographs and a note of that cancelled meeting.
If they ignore you, you can bring a claim in nuisance and even seek an injunction compelling them to clear your access. The courts take obstruction of rights of way seriously.
