very annoyed, very long story, what would you do?

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Ambypamby

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So i have been at my current yard for just over 2 years now its got its ups and downs like any other but i was mainly happy. We pay £110 a month for stable, turnout, outdoor arena and hay.

Last week on the 8th Jun we had an email from YO (who is not horsey) to tell us that she will as of the 1st Jun (yes backdated to beginning of june!) of you keep your horses in during the summer months either in the day or at night for 8-18 days she will charge you an extra £20 a month and if you keep your horse in every night she will charge you £40 a month extra!!!!

it gets worse the same week when she had the cheek to tell us the rent increase she buggered off on holiday for a week and left us with no hay whatsoever!!! we previously told her we were running out. so off we all went to buy small bales squeezing them in our car completley inconveniet!

also the YO is going through a divorce and her ex husband wants the outdoor school as he paid for it and he wants it back so looks like we will be losing that too :(

as you can imagine i have lost my rag and i am now on a waiting list for another much better yard. its further from my house but its worth it.

my main predicament is that i know the 2 of my other friends are on the waiting list too and we are all hopefully going to leave together this means the YO will have to fork out £330 back to us as we gave her £110 deposit per horse. I know she does not have that money as she cant afford hay and the previous two people that left had to wait 6 months for their deposit. One girl whos horse died nearly didnt get hers back as the lady didnt have a months notice of her horse dying!!!

so my options are as follows

cancel direct debit of £110 1 Jul which is same amount as my deposit and just tell her i took my deposit back out of my rent for this month. make sure ive got somewhere to go in the meantime incase she kicks me off for cancelling my direct debit.

Give a months notice and hope she pays me my money back eventually.

thoughts on this please

thanks
 
Blimey that doesn't sound like a good situation to be in, I think i would find somewhere else and cancel my DD to be honest as it appears you will have a hard time getting your deposit back off her, but thats me, and if the hay is included in your livery payment why hasn't she left you with any, it's not your fault she's getting a divorce is it, I would get out of there asap
 
She can't afford hay but she can afford to go on holiday - nah! take your money back as soon as you have somewhere else to go .... or she may have another holiday on your money! :mad:
 
the yard belonged to her husband and he has his hunters there when he left she has tried to run it herself. We have even said that we will provide our own hay if she drops the rent a little but no. whats worse is she works in london and the yard is in glos so she is never on site for any problems etc. The muck trailer is full to the brim. there is a skip in the middle of the yard thats been ther for 6 months thats full and we keep asking her to get rid.

the fields are full of ragwort and the fencing has no batteries attached so horses go through it so if we want to keep out horses in we get charged an extra £40!

we have told her all this but it just falls on deaf ears. :(
 
To be honest I'd make sure I had somewhere else to go before cancelling the DD, but as soon as you know you have somewhere and can get transport organised at short notice, cancel the DD and I'm assuming your livery bill is more than your deposit so I would leave her a cheque for the difference and a letter stating that you are giving one month's notice and how you have worked out the balance, that way she has no recourse - if she kicks you off the yard she has broken the month notice contract so has no financial come-back. Good luck - it's an awful situation to be in but am sure you, your friends and your poor ponies will be better off at a more organised yard.
 
i wondered if i did cancel my dd if she could actually kick me off before the month is up. is there any sort of legal guidelines about livestock and notice to move them?
 
Did you sign a livery agreement of any sort when you joined the yard?? If you didn't then I don't think there's anything she can really do if you just leave.
I would cancel the DD, keep your money, it sounds highly unlikely that you'll get your deposit back or you'll be waiting a long time for it.
If I was you I would get going ASAP, even if it was to somewhere temporary while you are on the waiting list for the other yard.
What a horrible situation to be in, hope it all works out for you.
 
Not a good situation however I cannot understand how she has managed at those prices until now. With the price of hay, she cannot even be making ends meet. If you were in my area, you would be lucky to get a field and stable for that amount monthly, let alond school and hay included.

I would only withdraw payment once you have somewhere to move to as she will probably try and get you off the yard once she realises you have stopped payment. She can go after you in the small claims court as could you if you gave her notice and tried to claim your deposit back. Good luck!
 
yes we all signed a contract that stated the rent at £110 incuded hay and we need to give a months notice.

Best get looking for a temp yard somewhere then! there is 5 horses looking to move so its going to be difficult to find room at a temp yard for all of us :(
 
lochpearl said:
Not a good situation however I cannot understand how she has managed at those prices until now. With the price of hay, she cannot even be making ends meet. If you were in my area, you would be lucky to get a field and stable for that amount monthly, let alond school and hay included.

I would only withdraw payment once you have somewhere to move to as she will probably try and get you off the yard once she realises you have stopped payment. She can go after you in the small claims court as could you if you gave her notice and tried to claim your deposit back. Good luck!
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she cut her own hay but for some reason sold it?????

where i am noving to is £110 for indoor arena, outdoor arena, xc course, unlimited straw, hay
its his business though and he runs it well by cutting his own hay straw etc. hes got about 500 acres which is ideal.
 
so you have to give a months notice? Therefore I would find somewhere else, keep paying the DD and just leave, then your deposit is your months notice livery money if that makes sense? Means you can leave before the month is up as you've paid as per contract and just get the hell out of there!
 
clarahiron said:
yes we all signed a contract that stated the rent at £110 incuded hay and we need to give a months notice.

Best get looking for a temp yard somewhere then! there is 5 horses looking to move so its going to be difficult to find room at a temp yard for all of us :(
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If you look for all 5 of you, you will never move. If your horses welfare is paramount to you then you've got to be selfish and just find a place for you and your horse. You will make new friends with other liveries and as nice as it would be to move together you've got to decide whether you want to be practical and move your horse or wait around for 5 spaces which are unlikely to turn up together!
 
If your that peep i would write a months notice and say your leaving

she cant back date payment thats wrong a months notice do u pay monthly thus u paid till end of june??

I would say ok im back dating a moths notice till 1st june that way u only loose 2 weeks money and find even a field to put them in while u wait for a space.

I have done a midnight flit as we call it from a yard , just up and left at night

long story had my reasons for my horses safety
 
Ella19 said:
If you look for all 5 of you, you will never move. If your horses welfare is paramount to you then you've got to be selfish and just find a place for you and your horse. You will make new friends with other liveries and as nice as it would be to move together you've got to decide whether you want to be practical and move your horse or wait around for 5 spaces which are unlikely to turn up together!
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oh weve all got our names on the waiting list for a yard were all going to move to so we will all be there eventually prob by the winter as a guide as i know he has a few people leaving for various reasone pregnancy giving up etc

just in the meantime we want to bail out we would have ideally liked to go somewhere temporary together.

if by the 1st july we havent found somewhere i have already got a temp place to go. i will just wait and see if a few of us can go somewhere else together if you see what i mean.
 
just to clarify if i were to give my months notice today 14th jun she would expect me to pay my £110 livery on the 1st july as usual then she should after the 14th july give me back the £110 i gave her as a deposit when i first moved. She then should give me the money owed for the rest of july i had already paid but i know she is skint! she has cheques bouncing all over the place and has a terrible rep with money.

so stressed :(
 
How come you have to give her a months notice when she didnt give you any notice at all about changing the conditions of your livery??

If it was me, I would cancel the DD & get myself off the yard ASAP to somewhere temporary - if the 5 of you are on the waiting list for a yard together, being separated for a while wont make any difference. Take your horse, your money & go!!
 
LegOn said:
How come you have to give her a months notice when she didnt give you any notice at all about changing the conditions of your livery??

If it was me, I would cancel the DD & get myself off the yard ASAP to somewhere temporary - if the 5 of you are on the waiting list for a yard together, being separated for a while wont make any difference. Take your horse, your money & go!!
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I dont know. shes ridiculous and to be honest i would love nothing more that the five of us to just up and leave and not tell her.

she cant even run a tap! ive just found out that although we now have hay she did not buy it. one of the liveries fathers who had been there for ages has bought it on the promise she will give him the bales back when she cuts her own! she needs to get rid of the ragwort first! silly man!
 
clarahiron said:
just to clarify if i were to give my months notice today 14th jun she would expect me to pay my £110 livery on the 1st july as usual then she should after the 14th july give me back the £110 i gave her as a deposit when i first moved. She then should give me the money owed for the rest of july i had already paid but i know she is skint! she has cheques bouncing all over the place and has a terrible rep with money.

so stressed :(
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If you're going to give notice today Why not make it easy on yourself and instead of paying her a full months rent on 1st July only pay two weeks? then ask for your deposit back OR EVEN EASIER!!! give your notice on 1st july but DON'T pay your July rent and state in your notice letter that she can take your deposit as your months rent and to 'please notify you ASAP of any other charges incurred' i.e. damage to her yard that she feels you should pay for. that way you are not witing on her to give you any money back. easier all round.

while the way she has gone about it is far from ideal I really cannot see how she can make any money by charging what she does for livery including hay. it still costs to have your field cut and baled either by yourself or a neighbouring farmer. Are you sure that the agreement isn't based on horses being turned out 24/7 during summer and therefore not requiring hay? (on a normal to good year - this year being REALLY BAD for grass)

Sounds like everyone has been getting their knickers in a twist over not a big deal... even £40 a month for (what is basically) hay really isn't THAT much in the current climate.
 
CBFan said:
If you're going to give notice today Why not make it easy on yourself and instead of paying her a full months rent on 1st July only pay two weeks? then ask for your deposit back OR EVEN EASIER!!! give your notice on 1st july but DON'T pay your July rent and state in your notice letter that she can take your deposit as your months rent and to 'please notify you ASAP of any other charges incurred' i.e. damage to her yard that she feels you should pay for. that way you are not witing on her to give you any money back. easier all round.

while the way she has gone about it is far from ideal I really cannot see how she can make any money by charging what she does for livery including hay. it still costs to have your field cut and baled either by yourself or a neighbouring farmer. Are you sure that the agreement isn't based on horses being turned out 24/7 during summer and therefore not requiring hay? (on a normal to good year - this year being REALLY BAD for grass)

Sounds like everyone has been getting their knickers in a twist over not a big deal... even £40 a month for (what is basically) hay really isn't THAT much in the current climate.
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i see what your saying but the point is that she is charging for a service that she has drawn up in a contract stating that the hay is supplied all year and quite a lot of people dont keep there horses out 24/7 anyway heat, weight gain, etc. the fields are not maintained there is electric tape everywhere with no current running through it even though she has been told a thousand times so even if you wanted to turn out to save the money you cant safely!

i think any person in the right mind would get their knickers in a twist to be honest.
 
I'd personally find somewhere else PDQ as a priority - make sure your place at the new yard is assured by paying deposit if you need up-front plus signing livery agreement, so you can move pronto.

THEN cancel direct debit and get yours out of that place PDQ. If you need to recover your money from your current YO then write a letter informing them of your grievance and asking for payment within 28 days; if they don't play ball then threaten solicitors; if that doesn't work consult a solicitor and/or go through small claims court (cheaper).

I can't see any joy in staying where you are; its only gonna be more aggro. I can't comment on the "rights" or "wrongs" but IME if YO and liveries cannot agree or there seems to be ambiguity, as is the case here, then its best to part company and look for somewhere else.
 
Does the livery contract say anything about rent raises/how much notice she'll give if she increases the price? If the contract says nothing you are giving notice anyway then perhaps there is little point in squabbling over the increase in cost.

If she has not provided hay in breach of the contract I would deduct the cost of the hay and delivery of hay to yourself (petrol?) and explain this in the letter where you give notice, and attach receipts.

Personally I'd secure a place for my horse at another yard today, then write a polite letter to the YO which simply states that as of today ___ June I give my 1 month notice, and that the last and final bill less hay (receipts attached) comes to ___, which you have/will pay on the ___ as required by your contract. Further, that you claim back the ___ deposit as per section __ of the contract, and expect this to receive the cheque within 1 month.

I'd keep a copy of the letter and all receipts for my records, along with proof of posting.

I understand why you find this annoying but also firmly believe in being business like and keeping things amicable whenever possible, and from the post it also sounds like the YO may be going through a tough time at the moment. Good luck in finding a better yard :-)
 
Sounds to me like this lady' s life is in turmoil and she's been dumped with a business she has no idea to run and is in financial difficulty so can't afford to employ someone to run it for her. By all means leave with your horse but you still need to abide by the terms of your contract. I hope she never reads this thread!
 
do you have a contract

Mine states that the deposit is equal to 4 weeks livery
notice is required at 4 weeks so once notice is given the last rent payment is not made as the deposit covers it.
 
When I left a yard under 'strained relations...' I gave a months notice, cancelled my DD - told her I had done so and that I would pay anything I owed on top or visaversa. I did this, not because she couldnt afford to repay me, but I knew she would deduct a load of stuff off my bond that werent owed. We left square financially.
 
I actually feel for the yard owner! She has been landed with a business that clearly only covered itself because the husband cut his own hay and now he has flitted off she has been left to pick up all of the pieces.
TBH it sounds like you and your friends have been winding each other up about the yard now the husband has left. It was clearly adequate before and now the woman is trying to make ends meet so has to put livery up by £40 per month (which I doubt it stll covering the cost of all the hay you all use) you are all getting pi55y.
Poor woman has just lost her husband and has clearly been left with lots of debts and all her liveries are moaning cause it's an extra £40 per month. I find this attitude terrible TBH
 
goldenmint said:
I actually feel for the yard owner! She has been landed with a business that clearly only covered itself because the husband cut his own hay and now he has flitted off she has been left to pick up all of the pieces.
TBH it sounds like you and your friends have been winding each other up about the yard now the husband has left. It was clearly adequate before and now the woman is trying to make ends meet so has to put livery up by £40 per month (which I doubt it stll covering the cost of all the hay you all use) you are all getting pi55y.
Poor woman has just lost her husband and has clearly been left with lots of debts and all her liveries are moaning cause it's an extra £40 per month. I find this attitude terrible TBH
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This ^

If its as bad as you say how come its taken this £40 price increase (at most) to get you all to leave?
 
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