Legal Question in Business Law in New York

According to your statement, you, an adult who presumably has not been adjudicated to be mentally incapacitated, entered into a contract of your own free will to send your daughter to a pre-K school; included in the contract was an agreement to give the school what you knew at the time you signed the contract was to be a nonrefundable deposit. You later changed your mind and backed out of the contract, and sent your daughter to another school. No other conditions existed than that you simply changed your mind.

That you changed your mind after entering into a contract is not the school's problem (unless one of 14 conditions that would make the contract voidable by you exists, and, based on your statement, that would surprise me). You freely chose first to sign the agreement and pay the deposit, then you freely chose to breach that first agreement and send your daughter to another school. The first school is indeed contractually entitled to keep the *nonrefundable* $3,000 deposit. They may, in fact, be entitled to sue you for more than that (depending on the terms of the contract).

Would it be good PR for the school to refund at least part of your deposit? No doubt. Are they legally obligated to return any part of your deposit? They are not.

"Nonrefundable" means just that: "nonrefundable." You say the nonrefundability of the deposit was clear at the time of contract � you understood the meaning of that term at that time. The fact that you changed your mind does not negate the meaning of that term, nor does it negate the meeting of the minds at the time the contract was formed � and it is that meeting of the minds at the time of formation that courts look to when they enforce or refuse to enforce a contract.

Perhaps you can chalk this one up to a $3,000 lesson learned: read before you sign, and be sure you want, and are able, to follow through with your contractual obligations *before* you sign on the dotted line.

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