Legal Advice for Gym Membership?

Cancelling a gym membership?

• hi around 3 months ago i joined a local gym through a special offer encouraging people to improve their lifestyle,the membership deal was if you sign up for a 3 year contract you only pay £12.99 a month which at first was great but gradually a lot of the equipment has broken with the promise of it getting fixed there just waiting on parts that have been ordered also on many occasions i have gone to the gym to find it closed at 5pm when it is supposed to be open until 9pm usual reason written on the door is due to staff shortages surely the gym owner is breaching his contract and i would be well within my rights to cancel.Any advice would be apprecited thanks!

• Answer:

  This gym sounds like a nightmare and sounds very much like a local gym I left a few years back. MORALLY you are well within your rights to cancel your membership, as I think there is a breach of contract. BUT, in my case, there was a procedure I had to follow. Like you, my gym's equipment didn't work, trained staff weren't on hand, the facilities weren't cleaned regularly, and it all due to either "staff sickness" or staff shortages". What I did was speak to the manager and tell him that I wasn't happy with the gym and gave him the reasons why. I then followed this conversation up with a letter, recapping what had been said and giving him a month's notice that I was leaving the gym. If you've made a note of all the times you have gone to the gym and found it closed, the instances where the equipment hasn't worked, etc., then this can be the basis and emphasis for your cancellation. Depending on the gym, they may request that you give them some "reasonable time" to fix the problem, but if that doesn't work give them written notice and LEAVE! Good luck!