Hey everyone! I'm hoping to get some thoughts from the OzBargain universe about a situation with late fees from a childcare centre.
To cut a long story short, the latest statement from my kid's childcare centre included an unexpected series of late fees added to the account. When I spoke to the centre about the fees, they told me that the fees related to previous charges where I had been late in paying. The late fees have been applied retroactively - months after the charges had been paid in full.
I suppose my main question is "Can they legally apply late fees after a bill has already been paid?"
A bit more detail to set the scene:
- The contract with the childcare centre did mention a $2 late fee per day, however the fees have never been applied to the account before now so I forgot about them.
- My wife and I hit a financial rough patch last year, and we were late in paying the childcare fees while waiting for my wife's first paycheck to arrive from a new job. We let them know what was happening, and they were ok with us paying late. No late fees were mentioned at the time.
- All of the bills were settled ASAP, and everything's been paid on time ever since.
It's not a huge amount of money, so I'm not looking to turn this into a massive drama… but I feel like we've been given the rough end of the pineapple. Does anyone have any thoughts about arguments that I can raise with the childcare centre to see if I can get them to waive the late fees entirely?
Thanks in advance!
How many days did it take for you to pay after the due date? I would send a firm, but polite email reminding them they were fine with it at the time and they shouldn't be charging things many months down the track.