Getting a Deposit Back?

Re: Getting a Deposit Back?

• abbyj700 member

  

  April 2014

  laurynm84 said:

  To be honest, if he didn't even book the date, why does he get to keep the deposit? It's not probably worth the OP's time for 100 dollars in my opinion, but I don't think this DJ is that professional from what the OP has said.

  
  

  I only paid 100 dollars for my DJ deposit. That's it, so I don't see why he needs 300 (how much was the total price?). Also, the fact that he pursued her, it sounds kind of shady.

  Our DJ deposit is half of his contract amount - and I see nothing wrong with that. Our DJ is a close friend of ours so he wasn't pushy about the contract or the deposit terms - but because we all want to remain friends - we're doing all of the business stuff by the books to keep it good.

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• JellyBean52513 member

  

  April 2014 edited April 2014

  laurynm84 said:

  To be honest, if he didn't even book the date, why does he get to keep the deposit?

  This is a good point. Let's talk about contracts.
  
  In order for a contract to be valid, it requires an agreement and a consideration. In a simple vendor agreement situation, the agreement is for the vendor to provide services and the consideration is the payment they will receive. Many vendors ask for a deposit of their consideration in advance to guarantee delivery of the remainder of the consideration and also to guarantee delivery of services. This is pretty standard. In the OP's case, the agreement was for DJ to provide services at her wedding which would take place on a date some time in the future. The consideration she agreed to provide was his fee, part of which came in the form of a $300 deposit that DJ agreed to let her pay in three installments of $100, for which he would provide a receipt.
  
  Per the contract, assuming that the OP is relaying the language of it to us accurately, she must provide the deposit before he committed his business to her wedding date. Because she did not pay the full $300, I think it's arguable that he did not commit his business to her wedding date and therefore she was not locked into the agreement. When an agreement is broken, the consideration needs to be returned (remember our discussion a while back about how some states treat broken engagements as broken contracts, and the ring must be returned as it was the consideration in the agreement?). For the purchaser (OP), that would mean forfeiting the deposit. However, she didn't provide him the full deposit so he did not fully commit to her date, therefore he was never really at risk for losing business on that date until he received the full $300.
  
  Furthermore, the fact that he didn't uphold his end of the agreement to send her a receipt for payment is a huge red flag to me and I would also cease to submit further payments to such a vendor until they came through with their end of the deal, which in this case is a receipt. If you aren't going to provide me with a record of my payments like you agreed to do, I wouldn't be paying you further. Aside from my personal feelings on that, because he didn't adhere to his contractual obligation to send her a receipt for one of her installments, I think HE'S in breach of the contract at this point, and if HE'S the one breaching the contract (calling off the engagement!) then he's the one who needs to return the consideration and give the $100 ring back.
  
  Without seeing the contract for myself and only going off of the information provided here, my final stance holds that since the OP never paid the full $300, she never had his full agreement to provide business on her wedding date, and since she never had his full agreement she is not breaking any contract they had for that date. 
  
  ETA some clarifying thoughts.

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