Paying a private tutor: terms, cancellation and your rights

Agree the cancellation window in writing

A tutor who holds a weekly slot is declining other work for it, so a notice period is legitimate. Twenty-four hours is common and reasonable; forty-eight is defensible for tutors with heavy demand. What matters is that the window, and what is charged inside it, is agreed explicitly rather than discovered in the moment.

Agree the exceptions too, because they are what disputes are actually about: illness, school trips, exam-period disruption and the tutor's own cancellations. A term that charges families for short-notice cancellation while saying nothing about the tutor cancelling is one-sided, and asking to make it mutual is entirely normal.

• Notice period in hours, and the charge inside it
• Whether illness is treated differently
• What happens when the tutor cancels
• Whether missed sessions can be rescheduled, and within what period

Prepaid blocks convert a service risk into a credit risk

Blocks are common, often discounted, and align with the evidence favouring fixed, time-limited programmes. They also mean you are holding a claim against an individual rather than a service you have received.

Before paying for a block, establish three things: what happens to unused sessions if you stop, whether the balance is refundable or only creditable, and whether there is an expiry date. "Non-refundable, expires in three months" is a materially different product from "refundable pro rata at any time" at the same headline price.

A reasonable compromise is to trial first, then buy a modest block, then extend. Paying for twenty sessions before a single lesson has happened is not a discount; it is unsecured credit at a discount.

What EU consumer law adds when the tutor is a trader

Where a tutor or platform sells to a consumer at a distance or away from business premises, EU consumer law applies. Directive 2011/83/EU, which has applied to contracts concluded since 13 June 2014, sets pre-contractual information duties and gives consumers a cooling-off period — the 14-day right of withdrawal — for distance and off-premises contracts.

The exception matters as much as the rule. Service contracts already performed with the consumer's express prior consent fall outside the withdrawal right. In practice, that means the right is most useful before lessons begin, and largely spent once a service has been fully delivered with your agreement. If you are booking a block and may change your mind, the window to act is early.

The Directive also addresses consent to additional payments, which must be active or express rather than assumed — pre-ticked boxes and automatically added extras are the pattern it targets. Note that an individual student tutoring a neighbour informally may not be a trader at all, in which case this framework does not apply and ordinary contract terms govern.

Invoices, records and what "all in" should mean

Ask for an invoice or written confirmation even for informal arrangements. It resolves disagreements about what was agreed, and it matters if tutoring is ever claimed against an education allowance or an employer benefit.

Ask what the hourly rate excludes. Materials, licensed past papers, marking between sessions, travel time for in-person lessons and report writing are all charged separately by some tutors and included by others. Neither is wrong; discovering it on the third invoice is the problem.

Where a platform is involved, establish who your contract is actually with — the platform or the tutor — because that determines who you pursue if something goes wrong. On commission marketplaces this is often the platform; in a directory model it is usually the tutor directly.

How the TutorDeluxe model differs

TutorDeluxe is a directory rather than a marketplace. Students and parents pay nothing to use it, no commission is taken on lessons, and lesson payments are not processed through the platform. Tutors pay a one-time €199 verification fee after passing pre-screening, and are refunded in full if verification fails.

The practical consequence is that your commercial relationship for lessons is directly with the tutor. That makes agreeing terms in writing more important rather than less — there is no platform holding funds in escrow, and equally no platform taking a cut of every hour you buy.