Is the termination of a contract valid without a confirmation paper?

Question

So I terminated my gym membership about 2 months ago (notice period was 1 month, but I wanted to have it done at that point just to be sure). I handed in the paper personally, because I still worked out there. I made sure to get some sort of confirmation in order to prove afterwards that the termination was handed in. I handed it in to one of the employees, which signed that he had received it and then copied it (one copy for me, one copy for the gym/boss). In the termination I wrote, that the gym owner (who is obviously the contract holder) should send me another confirmation of receiving the termination and telling me the actual termination date of the contract.

Since then, I have not received any mail from the owner regarding this additional confirmation paper. I asked him about 1 week after turning in the termination if he got it, he said he got it. Another 2 weeks later I asked if he already sent the confirmation, he said he'll do it at the end of the month (for whatever reason). I wasn't really worried about that because we never had any disagreements or something. I just quit the membership because I'm moving soon. Today I asked again, and he said something along the lines "oh, you did not get it? I'll send you one the next day".

Since he already said he'd send the confirmation weeks ago, without him actually doing so, I don't really trust him this time either. So my question now is: Is the termination of the contract valid without me receiving (or him sending) the confirmation? Or in other words maybe: Is the signiture of the employee under the termination enough for me to be sure I don't have to pay the next membership period (which is 6 months, starting in march).

All this takes place in Germany, may be relevent to the case because of local laws and stuff I guess.

Answer 1

Is the termination of the contract valid without me receiving (or him sending) the confirmation? Or in other words maybe: Is the signiture of the employee under the termination enough for me to be sure I don't have to pay the next membership period (which is 6 months, starting in march).

Why would you think that this is necessary? Does the contract say so? As @DaleM notes, if you fully perform a contractual requirement, they can't impose liability upon you for their failure to take action that they are required to take.

You can prove that you delivered proof of your termination to an employee in the right time frame. There doesn't seem to be any indication that the gym is trying to charge you for an additional membership (and if they did do so by a credit card they had on file, you could have the charge reversed as unauthorized).

Even if the contract called for notice to be given by another means (e.g. mail), if you could show with a written document that you actually made a timely delivery of notice to an agent of the owner, and if the owner orally acknowledged to you that he received the notice (something to which you could testify under oath and which he would have to lie under oath to deny), this would almost certainly be considered an immaterial breach of the contract since he had actual notice. Courts routinely ignore the precise requirements for giving notice under a contract if there is substantial compliance that results in actual notice, especially in a contract involving dealings with consumers.

There are situations where a sleazy gym might try to claim that it didn't receive notice and bill someone for additional charges and bring a lawsuit if they didn't (which would be for a tiny amount of money compared to the costs and bother of litigation). But, surely they wouldn't do it in your case of all cases, where they know they will be up against an exceptionally well documented defense sitting in a file folder and ready to go.

If you are really worried, write a confirming letter to the gym owner and send it by a means that provides proof of delivery (e.g. Federal Express or some other courier service) and keep a copy of the letter together with the proof of delivery. Then, forget about it and get on with your life. Don't get bogged down by the gym owner's failure to send a written confirmation when you already have one from his employee.

Answer 2

If you have done all that is required to terminate the contract then the fact they have not done what they are required to do is irrelevant - the contract has been validly terminated.

However, are you sure you that hand delivery of a termination notice meets the requirements of the contract? For example, it is not uncommon for such contracts to require termination notices to be delivered by post - if so, your hand-delivered notice is invalid. In general, consumer protection laws tend to take a dim view of such practices but they may not be illegal in your jurisdiction.