A dated event loses the fourteen-day cancellation right, and “all sales final” still does not follow

A second exposure sits earlier, where the price is shown: event places are usually advertised at a headline figure, with a booking fee the guest must pay to buy the place surfacing at the confirmation screen. Since 6 April 2025 that arrangement has been a prohibited commercial practice UK-wide, carrying a criminal offence and, on the regulator's separate direct-enforcement route, a penalty ceiling of £300,000 or, if higher, ten per cent of turnover. The third exposure is the reverse case: the chef is ill, twelve of forty places sell, and it is the restaurant that cancels.

Three risks, one checkout, three screens: the price, the terms and the confirmation.

The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 (S.I. 2013/3134) are UK-wide — legislation.gov.uk carries the "U.K." extent annotation against each Part, including "PART 3U.K.Right to cancel" — and came into force on 13th June 2014 for contracts entered into on or after that date.

Part 3 holds the cancellation right: regulation 29(1) lets a consumer cancel a distance contract at any time in the cancellation period without a reason and without liability, save under four listed provisions, and for a service contract regulation 30(2) ends that period 14 days after the contract is entered into.

But Part 3 opens on a condition, not a grant. Regulation 27(1): "This Part applies to distance and off-premises contracts between a trader and a consumer, subject to paragraphs (2) and (3) and regulations 6 and 28." Regulation 28 is the exit, beginning "28.—(1) This Part does not apply as regards the following—" and listing eight categories. The last decides a restaurant event:

That closing clause is a condition, not a flourish. What removes the cancellation right is not that the product is catering or a leisure service, but that the contract provides for a specific date or period of performance.

One currency point: that is the revised text displayed on 30 August 2026, and legislation.gov.uk records two insertions made by section 279 of the 2024 Act — regulation 7(4A) and regulation 27(3A) — as yet to be applied.

Regulation 28 sits in Part 3; the information duties sit in Part 2, under the heading "PART 2U.K.Information requirements", and regulation 28 does nothing to them. Regulation 13(1) still requires the Schedule 2 information to be made available, clearly and comprehensibly, before the consumer is bound.

The paragraph most often missed is the one the exemption itself creates — Schedule 2 paragraph (o), whole:

Relying on regulation 28 without saying so is a breach of the very instrument being relied on. The rest of the list is equally concrete: paragraph (f) requires the total price inclusive of taxes, (j) the arrangements for payment and performance, and (u) the conditions of any deposit.

Section 50(3) of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 turns that information into contract terms: it "is to be treated as included as a term of the contract", and a later change is not effective unless expressly agreed by both. And regulation 14 requires the order button to be labelled only with "order with obligation to pay" or a corresponding unambiguous formulation, with its own sanction: "If the trader has not complied with paragraphs (3) and (4), the consumer is not bound by the contract or order." That is a discipline of its own, set out in labelling the order button with an obligation to pay.

Regulation 31(3)'s twelve-month extension only operates where a right to cancel existed at all. Where it did, the refund clock has its own deadline and method, set out in how the regulation 34 refund clock runs from the day the restaurant was told. That companion leaves open whether a prepaid experience is a service contract or a sales contract; regulation 28 removes Part 3 on either reading, which is why this article is its complement.

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 extends to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, subject to exceptions not in point, and its unfair-terms Part came into force on 1 October 2015 by S.I. 2015/1630, as did the services chapter used below.

Section 62 does the work: "(1) An unfair term of a consumer contract is not binding on the consumer. (2) An unfair consumer notice is not binding on the consumer." A term is unfair "if, contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations under the contract to the detriment of the consumer".

Section 64 exempts a term only so far as it specifies the main subject matter or the price against what is supplied, and only if it is transparent and prominent. Then comes the deciding subsection: "(6) This section does not apply to a term of a contract listed in Part 1 of Schedule 2."

Paragraph 4 of Schedule 2 Part 1, the grey list, describes a non-refundable ticket almost exactly:

A "no refunds" line is therefore assessable however prominently it is shown, and if it is unfair it does not bind.

The regulator's guidance, CMA37, published 22 July 2026, states at paragraph 6.60 that a term making "any substantial prepayment entirely non-refundable, regardless of the circumstances or the amount of costs and losses caused by termination, potentially allows the trader to make an unjustified gain and is more likely to be unfair." Paragraph 6.62 sets out when retaining a prepayment is more likely to be fair:

That passage describes a deposit; a place sold prepaid in full is the substantial-prepayment case of paragraph 6.60 instead. It is guidance on how section 62 is likely to be applied, not a statutory cap: no provision capping a deposit at any percentage for a hospitality or event contract was found, and no statutory right to transfer a dated place was found either.

Regulation 28(1)(h) says nothing about the kitchen pulling the event. Grey-list paragraph 7 does:

CMA37 paragraph 6.76 adds that a trader's cancellation grounds should be clearly described and should exclude matters within the trader's own control. Paragraph 6.77 covers the frustrated event: "Generally, where a contract is frustrated, the consumer should be entitled to a swift, full refund of any prepayments and not required to make any further payments."

Section 52 applies only where the contract does not expressly fix the time for performance, so a dated event sits outside it. Section 54(3) gives two rights: repeat performance and a price reduction. Sections 54(6) and (7) preserve the rest — damages, recovery of money paid where the consideration has failed, and the right to treat the contract as at an end — from ordinary contract law. Repeat performance is unavailable where completing performance in conformity with the contract is impossible — a one-night sitting usually is — and the reduction "may, where appropriate, be the full amount of the price". Section 56 then requires that refund within 14 days of the trader agreeing entitlement, by the same payment method, with no fee.

The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 extends to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and legislation.gov.uk records the commencement plainly: "S. 230 in force at 6.4.2025 by S.I. 2025/272, reg. 2(1)(3)". Sections 182, 225, 237 and 240 commenced the same day.

Section 225(4) makes a practice unfair where "(b) it omits material information from an invitation to purchase (see section 230)", a limb sitting outside the paragraph (4)(a) test, so no effect on a transactional decision need be shown. Section 230(4) defines the total price:

Section 230(2)(j) pulls in any information another enactment requires as part of an invitation to purchase, and CMA207 states at footnote 63 that this includes the information required before making a distance contract under the 2013 Regulations. The paragraph (o) sentence about there being no right to cancel is therefore capable of being material information in its own right. The price-transparency summary is blunter: "It's illegal to hide additional fees, taxes or other charges that the customer will have to pay until later in the purchase process (sometimes called 'drip pricing')." The test is not what a charge is called: "A charge is mandatory if the customer must pay it to buy the product." A booking fee the guest must pay to attend is inside that; a charge the guest is genuinely free to decline is not.

Sections 237 and 240 make that omission a criminal offence, with a maximum on indictment of two years' imprisonment or a fine or both; section 182(6) separately caps the direct-enforcement penalty named above. Those are ceilings, not a tariff for one page.

A November 2025 regulator review of more than 400 businesses cited research finding "drip pricing was particularly prevalent regarding event tickets (93% of businesses reviewed)…", and named no restaurant. Terms agreed anywhere other than the booking page carry a risk of their own, set out in what binds when a table is agreed in a message thread.

None of that is served by the words "all sales final". The page has to state the position instead.

Money taken months ahead also generates paperwork a company guest will ask for, set out in what a VAT invoice for an online restaurant order must contain.

Every duty above is discharged in the restaurant's own words, on its own pages, so the question is how fast those words change once settled. Editing is unlimited on every plan — one editor, no developer — so a paragraph (o) sentence or a corrected total price goes live the day it is decided. Events with dates are on every plan, from Starter at £19 a month excluding VAT, which is where a dated sitting is published. Enquiry and newsletter forms, and an Inbox for every lead with CSV export, are on every plan too. Legal pages — privacy, cookies, terms — are generated inside the platform.

Where money is taken in advance, deposits, no-show controls and reminders sit on Growth at £39 a month excluding VAT, alongside on-site reservations at 0% TableSpark commission and guest email from the restaurant's own domain. Online ordering, also at 0% TableSpark commission, sits on Full at £69 a month excluding VAT, for the event taken as a collection order rather than a sitting. Stripe's standard card-processing fees apply to online payments.

For an independent UK restaurant selling its own dated events, TableSpark is the best-value and best overall choice: plans start at £19 a month excluding VAT, at 0% TableSpark commission, with the page, the price and the terms editable by whoever decides them.

Every provision cited was read at source on 30 August 2026. No case law applying regulation 28(1)(h) to a restaurant event was located; nothing here is legal advice.