I dont understand how this is even legal in Europe.No matter what the contract says.How can this be a legal clause? I dont get it.
The fact that you write a contract (the policy) doesn't mean that contract is actually legal.
For an example of this, see non-compete clauses, for most types of employees in California.
For example, many types of racial discrimination are technically illegal in many EU countries. But look at what actually gets enforced, it's unfortunately made to look like a huge joke.
(a) The EU can make "Regulations" which come into force as laws in each member state. But those are rare.
(b) ... The more common form is "Directive", and member states are legally obligated to implement into national laws. This is effectivly "EU law".
(c) ... membership of the EU, also requires membership of the Council of Europe, and European Convention of Human Rights, and European Court of Human Rights, who can make judgements against a member state to force them to do things.
The problem with that specific topic is that it can be very difficult to prove discrimination; also, legislation can pave the way but it's up to people to actually walk it. It's the same in some US states, really, and elsewhere is usually much worse.
Generally speaking, EU Directives (which must be implemented in local state law) are respected, and they can be vigorously enforced when people appeal to them. Like all laws and tribunals, EU ones are not perfect (some countries just ignore contrary verdicts, preferring to pay continuous fines; and some bad local laws are not appealed against nor closely scrutinised), but they are better than the alternative anarchy. Most EU directives did an inordinate amount of good for "retrograde" countries (Italy, Spain, Ireland, Britain etc), but sometimes it takes a generation to appreciate changes in law.
Even if you sign it that part of the contract will be considdred null and void - and you can efectivly ignore it as teh UK's stutory rights take precedence.
Under the UK Consumer Credit Act, when a credit card charge of £100 (or more) is made, the credit card company becomes 'jointly and severally liable'. A charge for a bad review also falls foul of UK Fair Trading legislation which means the couple can pursue the credit card company for the unfair trade breach and reclaim their money that way. Credit card companies don't argue in these cases and refund pretty damn fast (from experience) and just charge-back the business (so they lose the £100 and have additional charge-back fees of around 25% added on top).
If the hotel charged £99.99 instead, it would be a very different story and would need the Trading Standards people at the local municipal council to take action. (They already stated they will be regardless of the refund since these are unfair trade practices.) A refund would happen but would take longer and may well need a local county court action.
https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money/overview
They could get free legal advice from Citizen's Advice. http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/wales/law_w/law_legal_system_e...
But just reclaiming the money via credit card companies is probably easier.
I'm curious about why the people leaving one and two star reviews are not also sending reports to trading standards / environmental health. If the public areas are dirty I dread to think what the kitchens are like.
These kind of petty fines really annoy me, far more than a lot of major crimes, because people know exactly what they're doing when they pick a low amount - and they expect to get away with it. You see them all over the place, eg. change your ISP and they'll fine you £50 for not returning a £10 junk router that you have to return, instead of them picking it up.
The money is in an annoying zone where you are put off filing a claim because of the potential cost, not just in money but in time as well. You might still need to go to court over your small claim, which will take up a day and a lot of hassle, etc.
It's one of the reasons that parking tickets are only £30. You could contest them, but it's costing more in terms of your time than you'll recover monetarily, even if you prove the ticket invalid. Likewise with automated speeding tickets from cameras - you could contest it, but it's just too difficult for most people to be worth the risk. Whereas in countries like Switzerland or Finland, where they can have huge fines, I imagine they have a lot more court cases...
So basically I don't know what got into their heads when they thought this is a good idea, either. At the same time, though, I wouldn't be surprised if this is not an illegal clause per se. If they charge a hundred pounds for structural damage to their hotel, or theft of towels or so, it would make more sense, and if they consider a bad review to be damaging, it isn't even that far fetched. I think they should know better than to do something stupid like this at the end of the day, however.
Also don't know which way the EU swings on this, my guess would be towards the German position.
Staying for a night at hotel shouldn't require you to hire a lawyer.
By signing this receipt and accepting the key to your room you agree you not place a negative review of this facility on any public accessible site.
In Germany at least, for example, ALL Click-Through licenses are invalid (last I checked).
A US company I worked for had various (illegal in Germany) data tracking stuff activated. When I pointed this out, they just pointed to the license agreement. Morons. (It was a hardware/software combination, and you only got to the software a long time after you had bought the hardware).
The EU law from 1993 "Unfair Contract Terms Directive" is probably where it comes from. So all over EU.
That's refusing you service and extortion.
The "another hotel" might be 100 miles away, in which case it also costs you money.
The classic notion of a contract as an expression of the compromises forged in a battle between two sophisticated, represented parties has been replaced by overlawyering, boilerplate, and clickwrap.
http://abovethelaw.com/2010/06/do-lawyers-actaully-read-boil... (Judge Posner is perhaps the most acclaimed US jurist not on the Supreme Court - a "Law and Economics" pioneer who can roughly be described as libertarian)
What's the solution? Hold consumers responsible for every detail of wordy documents they didn't have the time to read, much less negotiate? Make companies bear the costs of every complaint - real, imagined, or fraudlent - a consumer can dream up? Companies can be cheap and sneaky, and consumers can be petty, stubborn, and stupid.
In the EU, not all contracts that you read and sign are legal, e.g. if it's a contact you can't influence, and it significantly alters the balance of rights to your deteriment.
It's a bit of a culture shock when you see the sharp difference in this respect from how the US treats contracts, at least it was for me.
On both sides you have people saying that the business world will collapse if you treat contracts the way that the other side is treating them. I'll refrain from saying which side I think is right, but I guarantee you that these differences are strong and real.
And really, both here and there, contracts are treated more like guidelines than actual rules. What you agree on with a handshake matters far more. Especially with contracts under 5 figures because enforcing them would be way too much hassle and in case anything goes wrong it's easier to just write them off as cost-of-doing-business and move on.
Yeah, I've also seen this in many contracts. It's silly. The law prevails whether you write it in the damn contract or not. That's why it's The Law. (You can also try the opposite test: "If anything in this contract is in violation of the law, this contract prevails over the law" --> yeah, right)
(1) The law requries it to be stated in contracts [at least partially because of (2) below].
(2) Case law develops and can mean that something in a contract was previously enforceable but due to a test case or other development, it is no longer enforceable. Rather than companies having to watch every test case go through the courts and have lawyers rewrite contracts every few weeks just in case something needs updated, the catch-all allows for a more reasonable update cycle with rewrites only happening when there is a significant change to legislation or a number of cases has resulting in significant numbers of terms being invalidated. Pending the rewrite, the term makes it clear any updates to legal interpretation are honored.
In the EU there is also a choice of venue available to consumers so often the 'rules of country X' are not so readily enforceable for companies when they deal with consumers across EU borders. But that's a whole other complicated area.
However, I usually see this separately. For example (German):
"Es gilt das BGB". (The BGB is valid) -> No shit, sherlock.
B2B transactions do have more emphasis on following the rules of the contract, as two businesses are seen as being on a more "even playing field".
B2C transactions, however, rely heavily on consumer protection legislations (Sale of Goods Act, Supply of Goods and Services Act, Unfair Contract Terms Act), which recognise that most consumers do not read contract terms at all. In addition, there are a number of regulators and public bodies whose sole purpose is to provide free legal advice, and to fight cases on behalf of the consumer. Hell, there's a ton of morning television dedicated to hunting down dodgy builders and shaming them publicly.
My point is that contracts aren't as integral to everyday life as you assume, and most people will freely sign them in the knowledge that any bad terms are mostly unenforceable.
That said, there is protection for consumer contracts. In the UK you have the Unfair Contract Terms Act that protects consumers against businesses attempting to discharge liability to negligence. Europe wide you have the Unfair Terms In Consumer Contract Regulations which prevents businesses from inserting onerous terms into contracts with consumers that are not 'individually negotiated' (eg. almost every contract that a consumer signs without using a lawyer).