Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Illinois

We had a conference in Chicago and charged our hotel rooms to a charge card in June of 2009. We signed a document stating the charge would be billed immediately. The charge did not appear until six months later on our credit card statement. We are a nonprofit charter school funded through various grants. The services in question were to be paid through a particular grant with a grant deadline of 8/31/2009. All expenses ti that grant had to be expended and closed out by 9/30/2009. Due to the fact that we were not charged immediately the bill was overlooked and the grant was closed out. We now do not have the funds to pay for this charge. Do we have any recourse due to the fact that we were not billed in a timely fashion?


Asked on 4/15/10, 10:15 am

1 Answer from Attorneys

1. From the facts given it does not appear that hotel was under any obligation to you to make sure you had a paid bill in hand for your grant purposes. You also don't say whether the hotel was paid but the credit card billing was delayed. The credit card statement should reflect the date of the charge and when it was paid to the hotel. Did you check with the hotel on any of this? If the hotel never contacted you that it was not paid that might lead one to think they were paid. The hotel should have have been able to verify payment with a duplicate bill that you could have submitted.

2. You need to look at the terms and conditions of your credit card - what if any liability they may bear for charges that are paid on time but billed late or paid late and then billed. Otherwise the credit card company also would owe you no obligation to bill on time. And if the statement shows it was paid back when but only billed now and they did not charge you any finance charge, you actually may have received an additional benefit.

3. Without some obligation pointing at the hotel or credit card company it does not appear that either of them did anything wrong. Most people might be happy they were not billed for several months......

Read more
Answered on 4/20/10, 3:02 pm


Related Questions & Answers

More Credit, Debt and Collections Law questions and answers in Illinois