I occasionally get asked for advice on how to cancel a gym membership, gym membership problems, contracts and disputes. Gyms reopened after the coronavirus lockdown with limited facilities after being closed for a few months.
The cost-of-living crisis has meant gyms are implementing excessive price rises and / or restricting facilities mid-term and making it difficult for consumers to cancel gym memberships.
This has shone a spotlight on consumer rights, with customers asking questions about how to dispute and cancel gym memberships.
Why is it so hard to cancel a gym membership?
People who lack motivation to go to the gym also tend to lack the motivation to jump through all the hoops and hurdles to cancel a gym membership. Gym membership firms are hardly going to make it easy for you. They wouldn’t make so much money from those who take out gym memberships and never use it if they did.
How do I cancel my gym membership?
You can cancel a monthly gym membership plan with no notice period, penalties or cancellation fees. You simply need to put it in writing.
Most gyms have a clause that allows you to cancel a gym membership if they stop offering all the services offered in the contract.
Can I cancel a gym membership due to Covid?
Coronavirus may be an exceptional circumstance (and it is), but the outcome is the same. The contract has been frustrated under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the services you have paid for have not been delivered.
How do you write a letter to cancel a gym membership?
You simply need to put a letter to cancel a gym membership in writing. The following examples can be used.
Please treat this letter as a formal request to cancel my gym membership by the end of this month / with immediate effect. number (xx). My reason to cancel is because / due to (reason).
Please consider this letter as a formal cancellation notice for my gym membership. The reason for this is because my medical condition has resulted in having to curtail my physical activities. I will not be able to use the gym for the foreseeable future.
Please cancel my membership and confirm it in writing. My membership number is (x). If you need anything else to process this request, just let me know. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
I regret to inform you that I wish to discontinue my gym membership. My reason for this is because I am relocating within the next few weeks so I will not be needing it anymore. I was happy with your facilities and had no complaints at all. I am happy to provide you with a testimonial to that effect if you would like me to.
I understand from the Terms and Conditions that I need to provide you with 1 months’ notice / entitled to a refund for the remaining period.
I trust that this letter will suffice. If not, please let me know what else I need to do.
Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
Can a gym refuse to cancel membership?
It depends on the Terms and Conditions you have signed and agreed to on the contract.
Some gyms allow you to cancel if you give one month’s notice, although you need to check the terms and conditions to see what the notice period is. There may be a minimum term contract that you have signed and agreed to.
Coronavirus is an exceptional circumstance. It can be said that the contract has been frustrated and services bought and paid for have not been delivered under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.
Ways to cancel a gym membership without a penalty
If a gym closes or removes facilities which are a significant part of what they offer in the contract.
Coronavirus is an exceptional circumstance that can be used in this scenario. For example, a gym which has not been able to open for a few months and can only offer limited facilities when it reopens. It can be argued that the contract has been frustrated and unfulfilled.
Unforeseen circumstances – a long-term illness that prohibits you from doing any physical exercise with gym equipment.
Significant price rises within the contract period. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 has a fairness test – it can be argued that this is unfair and not enforceable.
Early termination fees, unnecessarily long contracts, automatic renewals or excessive penalties are considered unfair under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.
What happens if I cancel my gym Direct Debit?
You will continue to own the gym money. Unpaid fees can be recovered, and it will affect your credit score. Any County Court Judgements (CCJs) will impair your credit rating for years to come. Cancelling a gym Direct Debit does nothing. You are still tied into the contract.
If you fail to pay your gym membership fees, your gym can send your account to collections. This will leave a major negative mark on your credit report. Unpaid membership fees can ruin your credit score.
Can cancelling a gym membership affect your credit?
If you simply cancel a Direct Debit and refuse to pay fees owed, a gym can pursue you for unpaid fees and send your account to collections. These debt management firms take responsibility for recovering unpaid fees and will take Court action if necessary. This can result in a County Court Judgement (CCJ) being made and will have a major impact on your credit score. A CCJ on your credit file will prevent you from getting loans and mortgages.
If you cancel a gym membership amicably and in writing with confirmation that it has been terminated, you will not be adversely affected.
You may wish to check your credit record in due course via Experian or Equifax.
Gym membership contract law
You cannot be bound by terms and conditions in a contract if a key term is considered unfair. Key terms of a contract need to be prominent, clear, fair, balanced and transparent under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.
Excessive cancellation fees, price changes and changes in goods or services provided can be considered unfair terms and conditions.
Any significant change to the goods and services that you have bought and paid for can be considered an unfair contract term.
The Consumer Rights Act 2015 has a fairness test. If terms and conditions tilt the balance unfairly in favour of a trader, it is considered unfair and unenforceable. This can render a contract null and void.
S62 has a requirement for contract terms and notices to be fair. S62(1) states that an unfair term of a consumer contract is not binding on the consumer.
S68 has a requirement for transparency. S68(1) states that a trader must ensure that a written term of a consumer contract, or a consumer notice in writing, is transparent.
Coronavirus as an exceptional circumstance can be used in this scenario. For example, a gym which has not been able to open for a few months and can only offer limited facilities when it reopens. It can be argued that the contract has been frustrated and unfulfilled.
How to challenge unfair contract terms
Write to the gym pointing to the term in the contract that you consider is unfair. Explain why and how it cannot be enforced.
You need to follow the complaints process. Escalate your complaint if necessary.
Make a claim through the Small Claims Court as a last resort. You will need to follow the pre-action protocol and give the trader one final chance to resolve your dispute before proceeding with Court action.
Complain to the Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA)
The CMA is a regulatory body that works to protect consumers and take action against firms who make it difficult to get refunds including unfair terms and monopolies.
You can also report a firm to your local Trading Standards.
Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974
If you have paid more than £100 for gym membership in advance with a credit card, you can raise a dispute with your credit card provider. The credit card provider is jointly liable under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and can act on your behalf to contest a dispute and get a refund for you.
This query was in connection with a lapsed gym membership.
QUESTION
“A few years back my daughter was down in Bournemouth University, she took on gym membership for a 1-year contract. She then decided to pack up Uni as she could not afford to live down there and move back home to Cannock.
Long story short – she cancelled gym but stupidly did not give 1 months’ notice. This was 2014 – now she has a debt collection on to her. I’m trying to get her to come to some sort of arrangement with them. They have threatened Court action and with what she owed and addons the debt is now around £170. Are you able to advise anything?”
MY RESPONSE
It appears that his daughter’s debt has been sold on and no doubt they will be trying heavy handed tactics to get her to pay up.
My advice in these circumstances is;
1. Send a letter by recorded delivery asking for proof that they own the debt and if so, is it a credit agreement? Also state that you have it in writing that you cancelled the gym membership and advised the gym of a change of address. There is clearly a misunderstanding that they need to address, and you reserve the right to take Court action if you are subject to any further harassment.
2. Lodge a complaint with the Office of Fair Trading (‘OFT’) at enquiries@oft.gsi.gov.uk and advise the debt collection firm that you have taken this course of action.
3. Await their response.
4. Get a copy of her credit file from Experian to see what has been recorded (if anything) so you can see where the footprints and paper trail is.
They could take this to Court, hence why you need to fire a robust response and lodge a complaint to try and nail it before it starts sprouting arms and legs (and racking up increased costs).
CONCLUSION
You need to get debt collectors work for their money as they just expect you to fold on the first hurdle. You are within your rights to contest this. The Office of Fair Trading will have come across this before on many occasions, which adds weight to your stance.
The more you throw at them from the start, the better the result.
It is hardly a shining example of great customer service and customers have various platforms such as Google Reviews, Trustpilot and Facebook to air them. Bad experiences travel much faster than good experiences and firms need to raise their game.
You can find out more about how to resolve complaints and motoring disputes in my book.
What are your experiences with gym memberships?
Hi I have joined this pire jgym seven sisters branch which opens on the 1st of December for the first week of opening the gym was not accessible because the pin to the door did not work then they finally fixed it then ta part of the Jim was flooded and not accessible then they close the gym for repairs then they closed again so I decided to leave then they refuse to let me leave unless I pay the instalment for January even I requested to leave before January money is due
Hello – I have a slightly different problem with my gym. Recently Lambeth Council took over all but one council-owned gym in the borough, under a new Active Lambeth brand. They had previously been run by Better GLL on a long-term contract. The exception was Vauxhall Leisure Centre, on which Better have a multi-year lease and Lambeth cannot take over for several years. Last December I signed a 12-month contract for Lambeth-wide access to Better fitness centres via my work benefits scheme and I regularly use both Brixton and Vauxhall centres.
Before the takeover, Active Lambeth said that they would arrange a deal with Better to allow Lambeth members to keep using Vauxhall Leisure Centre as before, but since the Active Lambeth takeover, I have lost access to Vauxhall without warning. After several attempts to extract an answer from Active Lambeth, I have basically been told “like it or lump it”. I think I could cancel and get a refund, but the nature of my 12-month, third-party deal makes it difficult, and that would still leave me needing two gym memberships, one at work and one at home.
My question is, are Active Lambeth not obliged to honour the contract I entered into with Better, and which they have taken over? Just as I had no right to exit the contract within 12 months (barring exceptional circumstances), so Active Lambeth surely have no right to break the contract either? Are they liable for the cost of my continuing to use Vauxhall Leisure Centre until my 12-month term is up?
Hi, I signed up for gym membership with a minimum 2 months commitment, during registration process I asked about cancellation procedure and was told that after 2 months I can simply cancel my DD to end my membership
After 5 months I decided to leave the gym and cancelled my DD, a week later I received an email asking for payment as apparently I was supposed to give a month’s notice, having read the contract it indeed says so which conflicts with was I was told during registration process
Am I out of luck for not reading the contract and trusting what I was told when signing up?
Hi,
Myself and my partner have a joint membership with our gym, we have just realised that we haven’t noticed the payment coming out of our account for a while – long story short I thought the payment was coming out of my partners sole account but he thought it was coming out of our joint account.
I did some digging and found that the direct debit is set up with our joint account but the last payment was taken over 6 months ago! Looking at the dd its still active, just no payments have been taken for the last few months, but nothing has been changed by us. We have still been attending the gym and our cards have been swiping us in and out with no issues. I know we need to tell the gym there seems to be an issue with our payments but am worried we now owe a huge amount of money! Can they ask us to repay the owed amount even though this seems like their admin error and not ours? Thank you
Hello Scott,
Hoping you can help with another David Lloyd’s issue. I am looking for some guidance on how to exit my membership, asap, without penalty. Here’s a summary of issue and my reasons for wanting to leave. I would be very grateful for your guidance on if I can leave immediately, without having to give 3 months notice
CONTEXT:
– They are closing a significant part of the spa area for 4 weeks (min) to refurbish it – from tomorrow
– The spa facility is well equipped with – 2 saunas, a 5-feature jacuzzi (big enough for 15 or so people), plunge pool, steam room, and hot/ cold showers – all indoors. Outside – 1x jacuzzi (big enough for max 8 people), and 1 sauna.
– Their plan is to keep the outdoor facility open for the time the works are being done
– I am now out of contract, but the terms state I need to give 3 months notice to leave in accordance with my membership T&Cs
– At the beginning of the year my contract went up 9.7%. I don’t recall getting any warning of this until AFTER the price increase took place. Annoyingly don’t have the email notifying about the price increase, but I did receive one.
– DL offered 2x guest passes when they announced that the works were in plan at the beginning of the year (valued at about £60 by their price list), but no word on reducing the monthly price while the works take place
MY REASONS FOR WANTING TO LEAVE:
– While membership at the tier I have offers access to everything (gym, pool, spa, classes) my main reason for joining is for use of the gym and spa. Without access to the spa in the same way, the value of the membership to me personally is diminished significantly
– The outside spa facility isn’t fit for the 100s of people that use the spa each day – so their solution while the indoor spa is being fixed doesn’t feel adequate while they continue to charge £150+ per month for a membership
– The spa area is constantly suffering from some of its features being closed for repair works. Annoyingly I don’t have a diary of the closures, but over the last year they have been frequent with one of the features being closed almost every month
– I am stumbling on the T&Cs, but I think they might be in breach under the notice they gave me about the price increase and changes to spa?
SOME OF THE T&Cs I AM STUMBLING ON:
https://www.davidlloyd.co.uk/-/media/files/uk-terms-and-conditions-dec-2022.pdf
– I think the price increase is fair as set out by their t&cs – price up 9.7%, inflation up by 8.8% – see 15.2b
– I received notice of the price increase after the price went up. I think they are in breach here – see 15.2b
– Unsure if these changes would be deemed ‘Significant Changes to Your Club’ – see 15.3
– Terms say I can ‘leave if notice [DL] have given you is less than the period of notice you must give us, in which case you can end your membership by giving us written notice which ends on the date the changes apply from. Notice was given of upcoming works to spa on 14 Jan, confirmation of the dates the works would begin + estimation of 4 week closure on 5 march. First notification c. 2 months pre-closure. I need to give 3 months notice in accordance with terms of my membership. – see 15.3d
THANK YOU!
Heloo.Just ‘ve read your article. Thank you for covering most of the cases .
A what about possible cooling off period? I’ve joined the gym less than a week ago , but have decided to cancel it. Does such thing as a cooling off period applies to Gym membership ? Do i have the right to request a cancellation during 14 days period ?
Hi. I joined David Lloyd gym after I stated that I could only go if I took my elderly mother with me to sit in nearby cafe by pool. I was told by the member of staff before I joined to trial it out and I could cancel any time if it didn’t work out. My mother needs supervision and 24/7 care. We had cov during the 14 period but tried it out with my mother soon after and it was a disaster, as I spent more time taking my mother back and forth to the toilet than in swimming pool. It really didn’t work out. When I tried to cancel membership in March 2022, as I was told I could easily do this before joining, I found out that I had been misled by the sales assistant. I have rang up and emailed them, been promised calls back but they have been happy just to take £120 a month with no duty of care and they have a very poor customer service. I eventually spoke to a manager on the phone June 2022, I quoted the Misrepresentation Act 1967 but they didn’t care about that. In January 2023 after waiting for them to get back in touch since before August 2022 last year. He told me I’d get a refund as he could see I had not used the facilities. A week later, I found out there was more misrepresentation as there’s been no refund only more money taken out of my account. I think they’ve deliberately delayed getting back in touch for months and months as they are only interested in misleading people to take their money and don’t care that their facilities are not inclusive or accessible to disability needs. Any advice. Thanks.
Hi,
I’ve paid a year’s membership for a local gym to use swim, steam & sauna. The gym have closed the use of steam & sauna. Am I due a part refund as I’ve paid for a service they are no longer providing?
Thank you
Hi,I joined a gym in 2019 on 12 months contract with 3months notice needed if I want to cancel it.My gym changes the owner 6 months ago who completed significant changes to the gym (less gym floor,replaced gym flooring for laminate flooring which is slippery,significantly reduced the size of the changing room,removed some exercise machines.This happened on 3.10.2022.I gave the gym a cancellation notice due to above changes but they still insist on 3 months notice!Is there anything I can do to end the membership immediately?
Hi I’m hoping you can offer me some advice. I have been with the same gym for over two full years and enjoy going. However we have just discovered without any prior warning or discussion that the gym has taken classes of its timetable for no other reason than it’s a summer timetable. They kept the same classes on last year and have continued to be popular throughout the year with attendance. Do we have any rights as gym members to stop this from being done without consultation. We have gathered a petition together and are demanding a meeting with the management but nothing arranged as yet. Could you tell me if we have a leg to stand on. I can’t see anything in the terms and conditions to say they have the right to cancel what they want due to summer period. We believe they are just trying to cut cost and are not actually considering us a gym members. Any advice you can offer would be much appreciated.
I sign my contract at local gim in slough in 2019 and cancelled around May/ 2020 due to covid by the same counter where I sign it. They continually taken fees throug my direct debit till Jan/ 2022 and I didn’t notice it. Can I claim back . There is no positive feed back from them and asset is built by slough Council..
I joined a gym on 8/11/19 due to a promotion being on. When I signed up the lady explained that if I left within the year I would be liable for the full amount for the years fee, which I agreed to. After the year I decided I wanted to cancel my membership and sent the finance company a message to cancel. The finance company replied stating that my contract was for 3 years and would not expire until 8/3/23 and if I wished to cancel I would have to pay £200, the difference between the highest monthly membership at the time of cancellation and the amount I would have paid. It is my fault as I did not read the policy correctly at the time but I never once thought it was a 3 year membership (I have never heard of gyms doing such long memberships). They have also suspended payment during covid and added these months on to the end of my contact, which is why it is now not expiring until 2023. Under the consumer Rights Act of 2015 does my contract fall under an unnecessarily long contract and early termination fees and is there anyway out of my contract please?
I as registered at a gym. They were taken over by another gym (one which I didn’t particularly like). Could I cancel the contract based on me not liking the new gym that has been imposed on me (without my choice).