Cancelling your sports subscription: your rights

Questioner

Concerns cancellation of sports subscription. In May 2011 I took out a subscription with a sports club for a year and the gym (tacitly) renewed it. Now I have cancelled my subscription and according to the sports club I cannot officially get out of it before May 2013. I referred to the law of Dam, but the sports club sees this as a separate case. Question: Can I cancel my subscription early? If so, how do I bring this dispute to court? Yours sincerely, update 7/2/2012: There is case law on the Dam Act! On January 12, the court in Haarlem ruled that the Dam Act did indeed come into effect on December 1, 2011 and that a notice period of 1 month therefore applies, also for existing contracts of which the first contract year has expired. The ruling of the Haarlem District Court concerned a subscription to a fitness school. This subscription was entered into in 2008. The fitness school argued that the transitional arrangement would still apply and that the Dam Act would only come into effect on 1 December 2012. The court ruled otherwise! Do you want to terminate a contract that has been running for more than a year but the organization in question does not want to cooperate? Refer to the ruling LJN BV1276, Court of Haarlem, 526840 CV EXPL 11-12063.

Lawyer

Based on the law, you can terminate your subscription as of December 1st. There is repair legislation in the making, but it is not final. If you inform the other party that and why you are no longer paying, they will probably summon you. I advise against taking the initiative to summon yourself, because (among other things) they could also let it go, you then also run more risk and also incur more costs (even if you win).