Hi,

I've had a look through the sub-forum lists and think this looks like the best place for me to post. Forgive me if this is incorrect and please move this thread to somewhere more suitable if that is the case.

I am a self-employed personal trainer and have signed a contract with a company (call it X) whereby they allow me to sell my training services in a gym (Y) that is part of a gym chain (Z) in exchange for a monthly fee from myself. This is a minimum 6 month contract.

Part of this contract states as one of the responsibilities of X that there will be no more than 1 personal trainer per 600 members in gym Y. There are less than 1000 members and I am actually the only trainer in a contract with X that is in gym Y. However, gym chain Z provides it's members with free 30 minute, 1-1 sessions with an employee of any of it's gyms including health checks, nutrition advice, motivation and a training programme. In gym Y I have watched those employees deliver these sessions and then book those clients in again for their next session later in the week.

As far as I am concerned (and also the gym members I would assume), those sessions ARE personal training sessions. They are also advertised online on the membership benefits webpage as "Free 1-1 personal training sessions". The director of X has been dismissing my complaints of this activity stating "that is not personal training".

So after detailing that long story (sorry) I have two questions:

-Is it within my rights to terminate this contract on the grounds of a breach on the behalf of X as the ratio of personal trainers to gym members is more than they stated?

- Would I be considered a consumer or a business in this contract? I signed it at home before sending it off and have signed it as myself (I have a LTD business but did not sign the contract under the name of the LTD business and the contract states my person as the 'licensee').

My reasoning behind the second question is that I have found some information regarding a cooling off period of 14 days as a consumer; the contract went live on July 1st and I have received an email from the director of X today (7th July) saying that he will get back to me in 7 days (I asked what my next steps would be to terminate the contract). I am wondering if I can simply step out of the contract right now under the cooling off period clause before this gets into a terminology war of what is and isn't "personal training".

Thanks in advance.

Reise

Under the latest set of regulations which came into force on 13 June 2014, “consumer” means an individual acting for purposes which are wholly or mainly outside that individual’s trade, business, craft or profession.

As this is presumably your business I'd think you would be treated as a business and hence no cooling off period, unfortunately.

To know whether you can terminate the contract you would need to read the contract carefully. Many contracts of this nature require you to issue a formal notice and give the other side a chance to remedy the breach of contract before you are entitled to terminate. I would certainly keep pushing management though, surely it is in their interest to have a successful PT program?

It does sound very odd that they are booking clients on for sessions but yet these are apparently not PT sessions ...

Thanks for the reply.

The definition of consumer there is very useful (albeit disappointing for me!). It just seemed strangely coincidental to me that the director said he would get back to me in 7 days, with the 7th day coinciding with day 14 of of the contract.

I will send them a letter notifying them of my termination request. Hopefully they will terminate is as an act of good will as I'm sure it's in their interest to avoid disgruntled 'licensees' representing them.

I agree with the above - I don't think the Distance Selling Regs apply here you aren't actually buying a product or service, nor are you a consumer, so it's not applicable.

You just need to serve whatever notice is required under the contract to terminate.