Not only were a bride-to-be’s dreams dashed by the Covid-19 lockdown when she could not take her vows at her dream location at a wine estate, but it also caused her to be embroiled in a legal battle with the venue when it refused to pay her back her deposit.
Genevieve Da Silva had her heart set on getting married at the beautiful Bakenhof Winelands Venue in Wellington.
The date was set for May 2020 and according to the agreement with the venue, she had paid her R50 ,000 deposit a few months before the date.
As the lockdown regulations prevented any gatherings at the time, she at first postponed the date to later in the year. But as travelling for guests from afar was still an issue at the time, she decided to cancel the venue.
But, she never got her money back, despite a request in this regard. She subsequently turned to court, where a magistrate ordered the venue to pay her back her deposit.
The venue, however, said the magistrate had erred in his finding and turned to the Western Cape High Court to appeal the verdict.
Da Silva told the court that in November 2019 she entered into a written venue hire agreement with the venue to host her wedding there. The deposit was to secure the date of May 2, 2020, when the wedding was supposed to take place.
The Covid-19 pandemic struck and during March 2020, the government declared a lockdown, which prohibited all social gatherings. In light of these developments, the parties agreed to postpone the event to October 3, 2020.
However, on May 15, Da Silva sent the venue an email in which she said the prospects of guests travelling to Cape Town under the circumstances of Covid-19 did not look promising.
She said she was looking at having a very small church ceremony instead and indicated that she wanted to cancel her booking at the winelands venue.
As a gesture of goodwill, she requested the venue to provide her with a schedule of costs already incurred by them and to refund the balance of the deposit.
The venue neither provided the requested schedule nor attended to the refund of the deposit.
Da Silva told the court that she was forced to cancel the venue due to circumstances beyond her control. She added that the venue in any case could also not host them due to the lockdown regulations and she thus felt she was entitled to her deposit.
The venue denied that it was liable to refund Da Silva any amounts and referred to a clause in its contract that provides that an agreed deposit becomes non-refundable 14 days after it had been paid.
It also argued that Da Silva was at fault and not them, as she was the one who had cancelled the contract.
According to the venue she was bound by the terms of the agreement.
Judge Deidre Kusevitsky said without making a pronouncement, it seems as if the appellant (the venue) “opportunistically” held on to the respondent’s (Da Silva) money when given the prevailing conditions at the time; it was not entitled to.
“Their actions were not only contra bones mores (against good morals), but performance of the contract was impossible due to the conditions prevalent at the time,” the judge said.
She added that it would have been “immoral for the appellant to have held the respondent ransom and to dictate when they could get married, as a means or entitlement for them to have retained the deposit.”
She pointed out that Da Silva was willing to pay for administrative expenses that the appellant incurred. This was reasonable conduct, she said.
The judge added that things would have been different if the Covid-19 pandemic and the attendant lockdown restrictions had not been in place.
“Fairness and morality dictates that the retention of the deposit was not bona fide (in good faith),” the judge said.
Pretoria News