Deposits, cancellations and no-shows: a detailing policy that holds up

This is general information drawn from the legislation and the regulator's published guidance, not legal advice. It applies to bookings from private customers; jobs for dealers, body shops and other businesses are covered by your contract with them, not by the consumer rules below.

Online and phone bookings come with a 14-day right to cancel

A booking made through your website, by phone, email or social media message — without you and the customer meeting — is a “distance contract” under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. A job agreed face to face somewhere other than your business premises, such as on the customer's driveway, is an “off-premises contract”, unless the price is £42 or less.

For both, the customer can cancel a service contract for any reason up to the end of 14 days after the day it was made (regulations 29 and 30). The regulations list the services where that right doesn't exist — accommodation, vehicle rental, catering and leisure services booked for a specific date, among others (regulation 28). Car detailing and valeting aren't on that list.

What that means for your deposit

• If someone books a ceramic coating three weeks ahead and cancels a week later, they're inside the 14 days. You have to refund everything they paid, deposit included, within 14 days of being told — using the same payment method, with no fee for doing it (regulation 34).
• Once the 14 days have passed, the statutory right has ended, and what happens to the deposit is down to your terms — which still have to be fair (see below).
• If you never told the customer about the right to cancel, the 14 days stretch to as much as 12 months (regulation 31). For off-premises contracts, failing to give that information can also be a criminal offence (regulation 19).

Booked for this week? The rules on starting early

Most detailing work is booked for the next few days, so the job often falls inside the 14 days. The regulations allow for that. You can do the work within the cancellation period if the customer expressly asks you to — and for off-premises contracts that request has to be on a “durable medium”, which includes email or paper (regulation 36(1)).

• Once the job is fully done, the right to cancel is gone, provided the customer asked for it to start within the period and acknowledged that they'd lose the right once it was finished (regulation 36(2)).
• If they cancel part-way through, they pay a proportionate amount for what you've already done (regulation 36(4)).
• If you didn't give them the cancellation information, or they never made that request, they owe nothing for work done in the period (regulation 36(6)).

In practice that means one tick box on your booking form — “I'd like the work done on the date I've chosen, and I understand I lose my right to cancel once it's complete” — plus a confirmation email that repeats the cancellation information. That's cheap insurance.

When can you keep a deposit?

Outside the 14-day right, your cancellation terms are judged under the fairness rules in Part 2 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015. Its “grey list” of terms that may be unfair includes keeping money when the customer cancels without giving them the equivalent if you cancel, and charging a disproportionately high sum when a customer cancels or doesn't turn up (Schedule 2, paragraphs 4 to 6).

The Competition and Markets Authority's guidance on unfair terms (CMA37, updated 22 July 2026) is the most useful thing to read here. It says a genuine deposit may be kept in full if it works as a binding reservation, the customer is told at the earliest opportunity that a deposit is needed, and the circumstances in which it won't be refunded are “clear and narrow”. It adds that such a deposit “will not normally be more than a small percentage of the price”, and that a larger prepayment may be a disguised penalty.

The CMA doesn't put a number on “small percentage”, and nobody else can give you one with authority either. The sensible test is the one the guidance points at: does the deposit roughly match what a lost booking actually costs you — the slot you can't refill at short notice, plus any product you've ordered for that car? On a mini valet that might be a modest fixed sum; on a multi-day correction and coating, a larger sum in pounds is easier to justify — but it should still be a small share of the price, not most of it.

A sliding scale is fine — the CMA says so — as long as it's a genuine estimate of your loss, set out plainly, and never ends up disproportionate or punitive.

If you're the one cancelling

Rain, a broken pressure washer, a van off the road: when you cancel, the customer gets their deposit back in full. A term letting you keep it, or cancel at your discretion while they can't, sits squarely on the grey list (paragraphs 4 and 7). The CMA guidance also says that when a contract can't go ahead through nobody's fault, the customer should normally get a full refund, including money described as “non-refundable” — and that equipment breakdown and transport problems are the kind of thing that can be within your control, so a term shouldn't treat them as unforeseeable events that let you keep the money.

Offering to rebook is good service. Making them rebook instead of refunding isn't something your terms can force.

A policy you can adapt

Rewrite it in your own words and set your own numbers — the point is that every case where the deposit is kept is spelled out, and nothing is left to your discretion:

• Deposit: we take a deposit of £[amount] when you book. It comes off the price on the day.
• Your 14-day right: if you booked online, by phone or by message, you can cancel within 14 days of booking for a full refund. If you ask us to do the work within those 14 days, you lose that right once the job is finished, and if you cancel part-way you'll pay for the work already done.
• Moving or cancelling: you can move or cancel free of charge up to [24/48] hours before your appointment, using the link in your confirmation email.
• When we keep the deposit: only if you cancel with less than [24/48] hours' notice after your 14-day right has ended, or if we can't do the job because nobody is there or the car isn't available at the agreed time and place.
• If we cancel or reschedule — weather, illness, equipment — you get your deposit back in full, or a new date if you'd prefer it.
• Condition: prices assume normal use. If the car needs a lot more work than was described (heavy pet hair, mould, contamination), we'll tell you the extra cost before starting, and you can choose not to go ahead.

Two practical points. Show the policy before the customer pays, not only in your terms page — the CMA's wording is “at the earliest opportunity”. And for mobile work, say what you need on the day (a space to work, access to the car, whether you bring your own water and power), so a wasted trip is clearly the customer's doing and not a dispute.

Fewer no-shows beats a stricter policy

A deposit you have to fight over is a review you'll lose. The things that cut no-shows without any argument are dull and they work:

• A confirmation email straight away with the date, address and what's included.
• A reminder the day before — the moment people remember they'd double-booked.
• A self-serve link to move the booking, so “can't make it” becomes a new date instead of silence.
• A cancellation list, so a slot that comes free can be offered to someone who wanted an earlier date.

Where this comes from

• The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 — regulations 5 and 7 (definitions and the £42 off-premises threshold), 19, 28 to 31, 34 and 36 (legislation.gov.uk).
• Consumer Rights Act 2015, section 62 and Schedule 2 Part 1 (legislation.gov.uk).
• Competition and Markets Authority, Unfair contract terms guidance (CMA37), 22 July 2026 — paragraphs 6.62, 6.64 and 6.76 to 6.77 (gov.uk).

DetailerHQ takes the deposit at booking straight into your own Stripe account, sends the confirmation and the day-before reminder, gives every customer a link to move or cancel up to the notice period you set, and emails your cancellation list when a slot frees up. The wording of your policy is yours — but the machinery that makes it work is already built.