DEAN DUNHAM: Is it legal for my hairdresser to charge me if I miss an appointment?

Last week I couldn’t show up for my haircut and now my hairdresser is charging me for the missed appointment. Is that legal?

EM, Manchester.

Dean Dunham replies: In order to enforce this, your hairdresser will have to demonstrate that you were informed before or when making the appointment that costs will be charged if you do not show up.

The Consumer Rights Act says that important terms, such as penalty clauses such as these, must be clearly brought to the consumer’s attention before the contract is concluded.

This means that you must either be expressly told that you will be charged, or it must be included in the terms and conditions and brought to your attention.

Cut it out: Can a hairdresser legally charge a customer if they have to miss an appointment?

So if your hairdresser is silent about this penalty when booking in advance, they cannot now force you to pay.

If you were informed of the no-show penalty when making the appointment, you should ask your hairdresser if they have been able to fill your appointment with another client.

If they did, they would not have suffered a loss and in these circumstances it is unfair to charge you as it will overcompensate your hairdresser.

Waiting nine weeks for delivery of the sofa

I ordered a new sofa and was told it would be delivered within six weeks. It’s been nine weeks now and still no delivery.

I told the retailer that I want to cancel the order now, but it says that I will lose my deposit if I do so.

GW, Cambridge.

Dean Dunham replies: It’s important to first determine whether the retailer gave you a ‘confirmed’ or ‘final’ delivery date or whether it was an estimate, as the law treats both scenarios in very different ways.

If you have been given a confirmed date, this will have been an important part of the contract between you and the retailer and failure to deliver by this date will amount to a breach of contract.

The consequence of the breach of contract is that you have the right to cancel the contract/order and reclaim your deposit.

Retailers almost always provide estimated delivery dates when it comes to purchasing furniture.

If this is the case with your sofa order, there will be no breach of contract for the estimated date being missed as this will not have constituted a term in the contract between you. However, that doesn’t mean the retailer can provide you with new estimated data forever.

If goods are not delivered within the estimated time frame, the default position under the Consumer Rights Act is that the goods must be delivered within a ‘reasonable time’.

What is reasonable depends on the specific circumstances. In your case, in my opinion, nine weeks approaches the limit of what can be considered ‘reasonable’. And if there is still no sign of the bank by week 12 (double the estimated time), this would clearly not be reasonable. That would put you, the consumer, in the position of canceling the order and demanding a refund of all monies paid.

Where delivery of goods does not take place within the specified time, my advice is to tell the retailer that you will consider the contract terminated – if the goods are not delivered by a certain date.

If the retailer indicates that they cannot guarantee the specified date, this gives you the opportunity to say that you cannot reasonably be expected to wait any longer without a definitive delivery date.

Then you can cancel the contract and request your money back.

• Write to Dean Dunham, Money Mail, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow G2 6DB or email d.dunham@dailymail.co.uk. The Daily Mail cannot accept any legal liability for any answers given.