The phrase cooling off period is used loosely and often wrongly. It refers to a specific statutory right that applies to some contracts and not others, and the distinction that decides it is one most people have never heard of.
Three kinds of contract
The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 divide consumer contracts into three categories, and different rules apply to each.
Distance contracts are made without the simultaneous physical presence of the trader and the consumer, under an organised distance selling scheme. Booking and paying online or by telephone typically falls here.
Off premises contracts are made in the simultaneous physical presence of both parties somewhere that is not the trader's business premises, or in comparable situations set out in the Regulations.
On premises contracts are the rest, which in practice means a contract made in the clinic, in person.
The cancellation right applies to distance and off premises contracts. It does not, as a general matter, apply to on premises contracts. So a treatment agreed and paid for in the clinic, after a consultation there, usually carries no statutory cancellation right.
| Contract type | How it typically arises | Statutory cancellation right |
|---|---|---|
| Distance | Booked and agreed online or by telephone | Generally yes, 14 days |
| Off premises | Agreed in person somewhere that is not the trader's premises | Generally yes, 14 days |
| On premises | Agreed in person at the clinic | Generally none |
| Distance, then treated inside the period at your request | Booked online, attended quickly | May be lost on full performance, subject to the conditions |
| Distance, with no information given about the right | Booked online, told nothing | Period can be extended substantially |
Read the Regulations for the exact conditions. This table orients you rather than replacing them.
What the right gives you
Where it applies, the consumer generally has 14 days to cancel without giving a reason. For services, the period usually runs from the day the contract was concluded. The trader must provide specified pre contract information, including information about the cancellation right, and where that information about the right is not given, the cancellation period can be extended substantially.
That last point is worth holding onto. Failure to tell you about a right can extend the right. If you booked at a distance and were never told you could cancel, your position may be better than you assume.
- Open
- legislation.gov.uk, the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013
legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/3134/contents/made - Type in
- Nothing to type if you use the address above. Read the definitions of distance and off premises contracts, then the provisions on the right to cancel and on services begun within the period.
- A good result looks like
- The Regulations in front of you, so you can identify which category your contract falls into and read the actual conditions rather than a summary of them.
- An ambiguous result looks like
- A clinic asserting that no cancellation is possible without reference to how the contract was made. Terms that describe a period different from the statutory one with no explanation.
- What it does not prove
- That your cancellation will be accepted without argument. It establishes the legal position, which is what you need in order to put it in writing.
- Note
- Check what pre contract information you were given as well. Omissions there can matter as much as the cancellation right itself.
If the service starts within the period
Here is where people are caught out. If you expressly ask for the service to begin during the cancellation period and it does, you can still cancel, but you may be required to pay an amount proportionate to what has been supplied up to the point of cancellation.
And the Regulations provide that where a service has been fully performed during the cancellation period, with the consumer's prior express request and acknowledgement that the right to cancel would be lost on full performance, the right to cancel is lost.
In a cosmetic setting the practical effect is direct: if you book online and attend for treatment inside 14 days, the treatment itself may end the cancellation right. Cancelling before the appointment is a different and much simpler position from cancelling afterwards.
The information you should have been given
Independently of cancellation, the Regulations require traders to give consumers specified information before a contract is made. It includes the main characteristics of the service, the identity of the trader, the geographical address and contact details, the total price including charges, arrangements for payment and performance, and, where it applies, the existence of the cancellation right and how to use it.
This is a genuinely useful list, because it is a legal entitlement to precisely the information this site keeps telling you to obtain. A business unwilling to tell you its trading name, address or total price is not merely being unhelpful. What a quotation should contain is set out in what a quotation should state before you pay.
How to cancel properly
- Work out whether the contract was distance, off premises or on premises.
- Cancel in writing, by email or message, and keep a timestamped copy.
- State plainly that you are cancelling under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, and give the date of the contract.
- Ask for confirmation and for reimbursement of sums paid.
- If treatment has already been provided at your request, expect a proportionate deduction and ask how it was calculated.
- If the trader refuses, keep the correspondence and consider the consumer advice service and the small claims route.
Do not rely on a telephone call. Cancellation is a moment you may need to prove, and a message with a timestamp proves it.
Deposits, which are a separate question
Whether a deposit is refundable is not answered by the cancellation rules alone. Where a statutory cancellation right applies and is exercised, money paid should generally be reimbursed subject to the rules about services already supplied.
Where no cancellation right applies, it becomes a matter of contract, and of whether the term is fair. A deposit representing a genuine estimate of loss caused by cancellation is a different proposition from one set at a level that penalises. This is developed in deposits, packages and courses of treatment.
Reflection time is not the same as cancellation
One final distinction, because conflating them leaves people relying on the wrong thing. Professional guidance in cosmetic practice expects patients to be given time to reflect before committing to treatment. That is a professional expectation about how a practitioner should behave.
The cancellation right in the 2013 Regulations is a legal right attaching to certain contracts. They are different in origin, in scope and in what happens when they are ignored. A clinic that rushes you may be departing from professional guidance while doing nothing that engages the Regulations at all, and the route for that is a complaint to the regulator, as set out in what a proper consultation contains.