The owner of Dundee wedding venue Taypark House has refunded thousands of pounds to couples who had their ceremonies cancelled after months of disputes.
The Tele has previously revealed a number of couples have been locked in a stalemate with the Taypark House hotel on Perth Road after learning their ceremonies would not be going ahead the way they had planned due to Covid-19 restrictions.
Owner Richie Hawkins has since confirmed that the hotel will now be paying compensation to couples.
In a statement he said: “For those couples where their wedding insurance has not agreed to pay out, we have offered a full refund.
“Additionally, for those couples who did not take out wedding insurance we have also offered a full refund to them where their wedding could not proceed as planned due to ongoing government restrictions.
“At the outset we were assured that insurance companies would eventually pay out to cover the losses caused by not being able to proceed due to coronavirus.
“However, it is now clear that some insurance companies, including our own comprehensive insurance policy, have not been paying out as they should.”
“We personally, as a family and as a business, feel awful for all those couples this has impacted.
“We have relied entirely on professional advice throughout, at times against our own personal judgement and feelings about these problems.”
Since learning that they will receive their money back, some of the couples have said they are relieved at the end of “months of stress and worry”.
Kerry Drysdale, from Dundee, who was one of the first brides to speak to the Tele about the compensation row, said: “It’s good to finally get our money back but I understand that the latest government legislation meant he had to do this.
“This us caused us a huge amount of stress and worry and now we reckon it will be another two years before we can get married.”
Another bride, who did not wish to be named, said: “We find it incredibly frustrating that after all these months of stress and worry Richie Hawkins has finally accepted that we ought to be refunded.
“We are very glad that we will recover the money but we will never get back the time spent worrying about it and pursuing every avenue we possibly could to recover the money, at what was supposed to be the happiest time of our lives.
Another couple said: “We are glad to finally be getting our money back but this has caused us so much stress that we have become unwell.”
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