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Seeking Reimbursement/Credit Advice due to Covid

Posted by (SE Washington) on

Long story short, prepaid non-refundable hotel in Florence just before Covid in 2020. They graciously provided a no-expiration credit for the amount I had paid.

Fast forward to now, I am hoping to visit this coming May, and find the hotel is in the process of changing owners. I emailed the hotel, and received no response. Somehow I was able to track the Facebook pages of the 2 owners and messaged them, but no response yet. I then reached out to some tourism offices in Florence, who weren't able to help.

Is there anyway to reclaim my credit? Is there some sort of tourist loop-hole where the government helps out in cases like this? Or any other ideas that I can try?

Just trying to exhaust all effort before giving up and moving on.

For reference this is the Relais Villa Antea, in Florence.

Thank you all!

Posted by
23245 posts

This can be very tricky and totally dependent on Italian commercial law and doubt if anyone here knows the law. Under US law a buyer is under no obligation to assume the debt of the seller. The seller owes you, not the buyer. I assume Italian law would be similar and there is probably some office for consumer affairs. I would look through the City of Florence web site (probably in Italian) and see if you can id an office related to consumer affairs, lodging, hotels, etc. And the former owners could be bankrupted and that is why they sold or had to sell. It is a mess. Good luck.

Posted by
3812 posts

provided a no-expiration credit

How did they provide such credit? If the company was sold as an whole, it's an acquisition and the new owners also bought all credits and debits they knew about. So the form you were provided this credit matters.

If the company went bankrupt the new owners do not have any obligations toward third parties: they probably bought only the building and the brand, without acquiring the company with all its debits and credits.

In both cases, I'd try to contact the new management and tell them my story.

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