Taking Deposits for Bespoke Work Without Losing the Argument

Ask a room of jewellers whether a bespoke deposit is non-refundable and most will say yes, confidently, and point to the personalisation exemption in the consumer contracts rules. They are roughly right about the outcome and wrong about the reasoning — and the gap between the two is where deposits get lost.

The deposit is not defensible because you wrote "non-refundable" on the docket. It is defensible because you can evidence costs reasonably incurred. Same money, completely different footing.

Does a bespoke customer have a cooling-off period?

Usually not — but probably not for the reason you think.

Regulation 28(1)(b) of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 excludes "the supply of goods that are made to the consumer's specifications or are clearly personalised" from the 14-day right to cancel. That is the provision every trade article cites.

Here is the part they leave out: that cancellation right only ever applied to distance and off-premises contracts in the first place. A commission agreed across your counter is an on-premises contract. It carries information duties, but there is no statutory cooling-off period at all — bespoke or otherwise. There was never a right to exempt.

So the exemption does real work only where the commission was agreed at a distance or away from your premises: the Instagram DM, the email enquiry, the video consultation, the visit to a customer's home. Which produces an unfortunate irony. Jewellers lean anxiously on an exemption they mostly don't need for counter work, while overlooking the distance commissions where it genuinely matters — and where the pre-contract information duty actually bites.

That duty has teeth. Where a cancellation right does apply, the 14 days for goods run from the day after the customer takes physical possession (not from when the contract was made), and refunds are due within 14 days of being told of the cancellation. If you never gave the required pre-contract cancellation information, the cancellation period is extended by 14 days from whenever you finally provide it — up to a maximum of twelve months. A jeweller who never told a distance customer they were giving up the right may find the exemption harder to rely on than expected.

Why "strictly non-refundable" is the risky phrase

The Competition and Markets Authority's guidance on writing fair contracts is direct about this. Deposits, it says, are "a customer's way of reserving your goods or services," and advance payments "help you to pay your business's actual costs during a contract." On keeping the money: what you retain "must take into account what your business is actually losing as a result. It must not be excessive." And most pointedly — "a term saying no refund is available in any circumstances is likely to be unfair."

An unfair term is not just bad manners; it may be unenforceable, which means the clause you were relying on evaporates precisely when you need it.

The fix is a rewrite, not a retreat. A term reading "we will retain our reasonable costs incurred to the date of cancellation, itemised on request" does the same commercial job and survives scrutiny. "All deposits strictly non-refundable" — the wording in a great many published UK jewellers' terms — probably doesn't.

This stopped being theoretical in April 2025. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 gave the CMA power to find a consumer-law infringement and impose fines directly, without going to court, of up to 10% of global turnover or £300,000, whichever is higher. Unfair contract terms, including disproportionate cancellation charges, sit on its enforcement priority list. The old comfort — that an unhappy customer probably won't sue over a £500 deposit — no longer describes the risk.

Worth knowing too: because a bespoke customer generally has no cancellation right, walking away is a breach of contract. In principle you could claim the price less savings made, not merely keep the deposit. It is almost never commercial to pursue, but it reframes the conversation. You are not scrambling for protection; you are choosing a proportionate settlement.

How much, and when?

Fifty per cent on sign-off and fifty on completion is the prevailing convention, with lead times of four to twelve weeks. It is habit rather than analysis.

Money leaves your business at identifiable moments: stone purchase, CAD sign-off, casting, hallmarking, setting. Stage the payments to those commitment points instead of to halves. A commission where the centre stone is 80% of the outlay is badly served by a 50% deposit — you are exposed the moment you buy the stone. Where the value is mostly your own labour, 50% may be more than you could justify retaining if the customer cancels early.

Two details that repay attention. Take the deposit and the specification sign-off at the same moment — take it earlier and you are funded but unprotected, because the dispute will be about what was agreed and you will have no record of it. And treat cleared funds, not a promise, as the trigger for ordering stones or starting work.

Build in hallmarking too. Above the exemption weights — 1g gold, 7.78g silver, 0.5g platinum, 1g palladium — a piece described as precious metal needs a UK hallmark before it can lawfully be sold. That is a real cost and a real lead time; leaving it out of the schedule turns an assay delay into a cash-flow gap and a customer-relations problem. On a four-to-twelve week build, a variation clause for metal or stone price movement is worth the same forethought.

Bespoke does not switch off quality rights

The most repeated misconception in the trade is that bespoke means no returns. It doesn't. Personalisation removes the change-of-mind cancellation right and nothing else. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 survives intact: satisfactory quality, as described, fit for purpose. A badly made bespoke ring is exactly as returnable as a stock one.

The cash trap

A cash deposit feels like fast money. It is also how you become an unregistered high value dealer.

HMRC defines a high value dealer as any business accepting cash payments of €10,000 or more in exchange for goods — cash meaning notes, coins or traveller's cheques, including cash the customer pays directly into your bank account. The trap is aggregation: the regime captures "several cash payments for a single transaction totalling 10,000 euros or more, including a series of payments and payments on account." A £6,000 cash deposit and a £6,000 cash balance on one ring combine, however many weeks apart.

You must register with HMRC before accepting such payments — accepting first and registering later is the offence, not a paperwork slip. Card, debit card and cheque payments don't count toward the threshold, so steering deposits to card or transfer makes the problem disappear entirely.

A deposit is a liability, not profit

Until the work is done, a deposit is unearned income. Spend it on last month's overheads and you are financing this commission from the next customer's deposit — the quiet spiral that closes small workshops. It belongs in your accounts, and ideally your thinking, as money you owe in work.

Finally, decide up front what happens to the piece nobody collects. Your capital is locked in metal and stones, the customer has gone quiet, and you are holding goods you cannot freely sell. A collection deadline, storage terms and a right to dispose after proper notice cost nothing to write in at the start and are close to impossible to invent afterwards.

The bottom line

Keep the deposit. Lose the word. Stage payments to the moments your money actually leaves, record the specification at the moment you take the money, keep large deposits off cash, and write terms that promise to retain reasonable costs rather than everything regardless. That is the same commercial protection you already wanted — on ground you can defend.