Hi Stu and thanks for the reply. Indeed, it is complex situation. The good news is that I managed to find legal representation after the duty solicitor helped me get a 28 extension to put forth a defence/counterclaim. The notice is section 8, grounds 8, 10 and 11. Undefended, it would have resulted in a mandatory eviction order. The gentleman's agreement is in writing. It is what he worded as, when he sent me the acknowledgment email, agreeing to the price. I have evidence that he agreed to both the first part (the planed part) and to the second part of the project(the unforeseen part). He has paid for some of the work (40% of the total cost) and I have invoiced him during the work, for the first part of the project. The work is still incomplete, hence the final invoice has not been sent. My lawyers have advised me not to engage in any communication with him anymore, as they will deal with his lawyers. We were never given a DPS certificate and we are going to find out soon if and when he has protected our deposit.

Hello everyone. Myself and my family have been living in this property since Nov 2011. In Feb 2020, just before the lockdown, the landlord and I made a gentlemen's agreement for renovating some of the property, which was becoming run down: the bathroom was mouldy and not fit for purpose, with wall paper hanging down the walls and a wooden sash window next to the bathtub that allowed water to run onto the neighbours front stairs while having a shower, bad tiling and flooring, etc.. I work as an electrician and I am also a multi trader/builder, having worked in the Construction Industry since 1991. I told the landlord about the state of the bathroom and he agreed that I should start the refurbishment. I gave him a price and although he haggled me down on it, we agreed in the end. The refurbishment was started and I took detailed photos at every stage of it. As I started to lift up the old lino, to my amazement, I found plasterboard on the floor and in the hallway, under the carpet. The floor level was uneven and the previous 'builders' decided it was good idea to use that to make up for the height difference. But that's not the end of the world, I mused to myself, I can redo the flooring. I carried on, only to discovered that after removing the offending plasterboard, the floorboards and the joists underneath had been water damaged by previous leaks. I took pictures and sent the landlord emails, so that he would be informed of the findings. I told him that the initial quote would have to be adjusted, seeing that there would be a lot more work involved that initially anticipated. As I moved onto working on the walls, the rendering was coming away in chunks, while I was trying to remove the mouldy, rotten wall paper. The condensation has gotten behind it and blew it away from the brickwork. 'OK, I can plaster, so no problem there', I thought to myself. But after removing the rendering, I noticed a long crack on the brickwork, from bottom to the top of the wall. As I pressed against it, the whole section of the wall started to move backwards. I realised it was no longer a brick wall that was supposed to be supporting the attic joists, but a disaster waiting to happen. Fortunately, being a double brick wall, the outer row of bricks was supporting the rafters. I carefully removed the broken section and rebuilt the wall with studs and plasterboard, also insulating it for the first time, as I like to work properly, by the book, when I do something. The house has no insulation anywhere, between the walls or the floorboards and we have to keep the heating on constantly in winter. Its a very cold house in winter and a very warm one in summer(sigh). Practically, everywhere I looked while doing the renovation, I could discover very shoddy work that had to be put right, by building everything from scratch. The plumbing was a nightmare (pipes running immediately under the floorboards and bunched together, hot/cold/gas and central heating, with the electrical cables running on top of them, totally against regulations). A nightmare of a house. But I soldered on and fixed everything as I went along, seeing that I had to finish the project. As if the project wasn't bad enough, the lockdown kicked in and restrictions meant that I could no longer get the materials I needed for the build. All the builders’ merchants were shut and the project had to be put on hold. Much to my wife's chagrin, as I had already lifted the floorboards to work on the pipes and the toilet had to be moved from one side to another constantly. Everything was up in the air and we had to live on a building site until the restrictions eased and I could once again source some materials. The landlord never once offered us a reduction in rent and I was foolish enough not to think about asking for one. So I carried on working and we lived in meagre conditions for about 1 year longer than planned, while paying the full rent. There were a few months when we didn't even have a window in the bathroom (during the autumn/winter time), since the old/rotten one had been taken out and we were waiting for the new double glazing to arrive. In the end, I managed to get most of the refurbishment done by mid 2021 and I wrote to the landlord(he actually lives abroad and only once visited the property in 11 years) and told him that I have run short of funds and I will need some more money to finish the project. I had already paid for the double glazing myself, as well as new wooden flooring and most of the materials that have been used. The central heating unit had to be taken off while the wall was being rebuilt and then put back on, the consumer unit had to be relocated, attic insulated and floorboarded, new attic ladder and hatch door installed, etc. To my surprise, the landlord answered my email abruptly and informed me that he is no longer willing to be dealing with me in person and I should be talking to the agency from then onwards. But seeing that we have had some problems with the letting agency, as they were sending us emails that they would come to inspect the place and take photo's and just let themselves in, without waiting for our reply, we told him that we no longer wanted to deal with the agency and that we would like to talk to him from then on. However, he stopped answering our emails and we started getting the new contract to sign, from the letting people. We decided at that point that enough is enough and that we would seek legal help in the matter. we refused to renew the contract for the 2021-2022 period, until we settled what was owed for the building work. By that point, I was owed around £15000 in labour and materials. Our rent being £1050, I thought that things would balance out for a few months. Fast forward to present time and we have been getting demands for payment of rent for the last 8 months. We also received a court date, as the landlord sent us lawyer papers demanding possession of the property on section 8, for rent arrears. We recently discovered that the agency had not protected our deposit until 4 years into our tenancy, so apparently we can ask for 3 times the amount back. While doing the refurbishment work, I have found several moth hives in the attic, bigger than basketballs. We never knew why we had tens of moths flying around the house and that explained the mystery. Seeing that there is no insulation between the brickwork and floors, the moths are able to move freely and I am pretty sure there are more hives to be found under the floorboards in the other rooms. We will know more when a building inspector will come to inspect. We also have been having a mouse infestation on and off for the last few years. We have a cat now and he is being kept busy day and night, bless him :-). But we have found stored food in cupboards eaten away, recently, in places that the cat can't reach. Due to a car accident, I have been unable to work since January this year, suffering from a back problem and undergoing physiotherapy. My wife used to work as a massage therapist until recently, but due to living under the poor conditions, the lockdowns and the 2 children suffering with problems over the last 2 years themselves (self harm, skin problems due to dust and allergens caused by the building work, not being able to attend school, etc) has had a nervous breakdown a few days ago. She had to admit that she is unable to work due to the stress she has been under recently and bursts into tears suddenly, while having a normal conversation. Our savings have finally run out and we have had to apply for Universal Credits 2 months ago. We are still waiting for the housing element to arrive. I have been trying to find a legal aid solicitor to help, but it looks like they are not interested and claim they are fully booked. It looks like my best option here is to self-represent. Does anyone have any experience with this or suggestions that might help us? I have never been to a court hearing before, but I don't mind fighting my case and I am a quick learner There were a few more problems with the property, the garden and one of the neighbours using our garden as if it was theirs, but I have tried to keep this as brief as possible. Sorry to have written so much, I just wanted to paint a realistic picture of the situation, so that people may relate.

Yes, you are right . I just checked the email I have sent them and I could see that the email subject was LBA, while the body said 'Please find the LBA attached., containing the latest details. A hard copy will be sent to your office for your reference.' I think that should be enough to cover it, despite the heading of the attachment itself being 'Notice of intended court proceedings'. The judge will see I did what I was supposed to. OK, I will wait until tomorrow when the deadline expires and then read their latest reply. Then file the claim if they did not agree to pay the sum in full.

I see. So that rules out the ET. Thanks Eric. Coming back to the matter on hand, does me sending them a letter entitled 'Notice of intended court proceedings' does not equate an LBA? My understanding was based on the following info, gleaned from justice.gov.uk: Objectives of pre-action conduct and protocols 3. Before commencing proceedings, the court will expect the parties to have exchanged sufficient information to— (a) understand each other’s position; (b) make decisions about how to proceed; © try to settle the issues without proceedings; (d) consider a form of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) to assist with settlement; (e) support the efficient management of those proceedings; and (f) reduce the costs of resolving the dispute. Steps before issuing a claim at court 6. Where there is a relevant pre-action protocol, the parties should comply with that protocol before commencing proceedings. Where there is no relevant pre-action protocol, the parties should exchange correspondence and information to comply with the objectives in paragraph 3, bearing in mind that compliance should be proportionate. The steps will usually include— (a) the claimant writing to the defendant with concise details of the claim. The letter should include the basis on which the claim is made, a summary of the facts, what the claimant wants from the defendant, and if money, how the amount is calculated; (b) the defendant responding within a reasonable time - 14 days in a straight forward case and no more than 3 months in a very complex one. The reply should include confirmation as to whether the claim is accepted and, if it is not accepted, the reasons why, together with an explanation as to which facts and parts of the claim are disputed and whether the defendant is making a counterclaim as well as providing details of any counterclaim; and © the parties disclosing key documents relevant to the issues in dispute. Compliance with this Practice Direction and the Protocols 13. If a dispute proceeds to litigation, the court will expect the parties to have complied with a relevant pre-action protocol or this Practice Direction. The court will take into account non-compliance when giving directions for the management of proceedings (see CPR 3.1(4) to (6)) and when making orders for costs (see CPR 44.3(5)(a)). The court will consider whether all parties have complied in substance with the terms of the relevant pre-action protocol or this Practice Direction and is not likely to be concerned with minor or technical infringements, especially when the matter is urgent (for example an application for an injunction). 14. The court may decide that there has been a failure of compliance when a party has— (a) not provided sufficient information to enable the objectives in paragraph 3 to be met; (b) not acted within a time limit set out in a relevant protocol, or within a reasonable period; or © unreasonably refused to use a form of ADR, or failed to respond at all to an invitation to do so. It does not state that the letter should be called LBA specifically, that's why I went with the title 'Notice of intended court proceedings' ans suggested somewhere. I don't mind sending them an LBA, if that means it will stop them from using technicalities to slow me down. According to this paragraph 'The court will consider whether all parties have complied in substance with the terms of the relevant pre-action protocol or this Practice Direction and is not likely to be concerned with minor or technical infringements', they shouldn't be able to, but they have tried every trick in the book so far, so nothing would surprise me. I will get reading on the Civil Procedures rules as you have advised, while waiting for a reply. Thanks for the help.

I did look up the term 'without prejudice', but after I had sent the answer to their letter. After that, I sent the same letter, titled 'Clarification', explaining that I didn't know what it was at the time. I also told them that despite them using the term, the letter will still be read at court proceeding, as it involves 2 parties. I pointed out that I had nothing to hide, implying unlike them . This was just one of the emails I was writing, in reply to their repeated offers to pay me a lot less than what they owed. £890 less, to be exact. The actual lbs was sent out on the 19 and it is this one: 'NOTICE OF INTENDED COURT PROCEEDINGS TAKE NOTICE that according to our records the sum of £1733.77 was overdue for payment for invoices 39086(1), 39086(2), 46731, 47247, 47501, 47521, 47550, 47567, 47585 and PJ001402. The Late Payment of Commercial Debts(Interest) Act 1998 entitles me to ask for compensation for late payment of debts. Due to the fact that invoices have not been paid on time, I hereby exercise my right to claim interest at 8% per annum over base, together with compensation at the rate of £40 per invoice and recovery cost. To date, the sum of £2323.68 is due and was calculated thus: Your Debt: £1733.77 Interest: £109.91 Compensation: £400.00 Recoverable Costs at Claim: £80.00 Recoverable Costs at Judgment (min): £0.00 GROSS RECOVERY : £2,323.68 Court Fee (recoverable): £0.00 This was calculated with the help of xxx solicitors and it is in accordance with The Late Payment of Commercial Debts(Interest) Act 1998. Unless payment is made to the above address within seven days Legal Action to recover the debt will be taken against you without further notice. Signed: M. ' After a lot of research, I now understand a bit better what my position is. I know that they owe me money and there is no way they can get out of paying them. Even if they dispute my workmanship and fail to see that if there were any problems, that should fall under their liability insurance, that matter is something entirely different anyway. They need to pay me what they owe me and THEN sue me for anything, if they desire. But they probably won't and like you have said earlier Eric, they were taking advantage of my lack of knowledge in the matter and hoped they can persuade me into accepting less. I am no longer even opening their emails and will not do so until the expiry date on the 26th. I will check then to see if they have agreed to pay the whole sum. If not, I will just file the claim with MCOL. In your opinion, how would dealing with this issue through the Employment Tribunal differ, as opposed to using MCOL? The fees seem to be similar, but what are the differences in outcomes?

Posted twice. Deleted. Anyone can advice on how to cancel a post, I can't see the option ? Also, how does one follow a post, there isn't an option I can see?

Arnye, everything else aside, every day that passes the pound where they have taken the car to will add charges on top. When this has happened to me at the beginning of the month, I was told that I would have to pay £48 per each day that the car has been in the pound. The bailiff letter only said that I will be liable to pay extra charges for the car being held at a secure location, but they never said how much that would be. By the time my Out of Time declaration had been rejected, 15 days had passed. Time is of essence now, if you are considering taking the car back. In my case, it was no longer worth it, so I said 'good riddance'. You need to ask the bailiff company where the car was taken to, they will want you to pay what they say you owe them, then they will pass you onto their fellow in crime, the pound, so they can skin you alive yet again. I am afraid you will find you have to agree to get raped twice. So act fast. Or let them keep the car and move on.

Hi again. The latest news: I have sent the ex-employer the latest figure that he needs to pay, after adding interest and compensation. The new figure is £2323.68. They replied that they will not give me more than the original £1433.77 that they decided to pay and issued me a 'take it or leave it' offer, with a 'if you don't accept that, you can talk to our lawyers, bla, bla'. I did not take the bite and also did not fall for their bullying tactics and wrote back a 9 point letter describing all the things that they have done wrong. I reiterated the fact that they have until the 26th to pay want they owe, when the LBA expires. After that, I will be taking the matter to MCO. It's also worth a mention that today I called an ex employee of theirs who used to work in the office. She left due to being paid a pittance and generally being messed about by the company director and the same man that doesn't want to pay me. They seem to have only one woman in the office now, instead of 3 like they used to. And this lady told me that I was never the only one that D. has had arguments with regarding money. Apparently, he owes another plumber that worked for them over £2000 that he refuses to pay. She said she will pass my number to him, so we can liaise about this. I will paste a copy of the final 2 letters, received and sent, for reference: From Project1 'WITHOUT PREJUDICE Dear Mr. C We sent your payment to you, in the sum agreed and with the cheque in the name that you use on your emails and correspondence. It is not our fault that the bank account you use is in a different name and the bank would not accept the cheque. We have had a further call about poor workmanship at Mr. H’s property, with photographic evidence and signed witness statement. We are offering you this last chance to accept the originally accepted offer of £1433. 77 in full and final settlement of your account, if you can give us the correct bank details. Should you wish to decline this offer, then our solicitors Palmers, Hassett House, Hassett Street . Bedford MK40 1HA will be instructed to vigourously pursue the matters of damaged caused due to poor workmanship and/including all costs incurred.' End of email My reply 'Without prejudice 1. The cheque you have sent is no longer relevant. I was not aware of my statutory rights at the time that I agreed to accept the lesser sum of £1433.77 instead of the rightful sum of £1733.77 that was owed me. I was never presented with evidence of the alleged damages, hence it was a decision based on hear say. I think we can put this matter to rest now. 2. My decision stands, I am entitled to interest and compensation as per Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 3. If you want this matter settled outside the court, I advise you to pay the £2323.68 that I am owed 4. Should you decide to dispute this, I would like to see evidence of the alleged damage that was caused by my negligence. I will also require expert assessment of the implied negligence and if it is demonstrated that the damage was indeed caused due to my poor workmanship, I will accept it as such. I have worked as always, to a high standard and I have checked the installation done at Mr. Hern's place before leaving the premises. All was working fine. I never heard from your office about this until April this year. To be accused of poor workmanship 9 months after the job was done is not OK. I would like to see the evidence, who it was inspected by and when, together with an explanation as why it was attributed to me. I would like to see specific details: part that was broken, exact position in installation, etc, i order to asses whether it was something that was worked on by myself, or part of the old installation. 5. Supposing something did go wrong with a part of the installation, shouldn't the work be covered by your company's liability insurance, seeing that I was working as a Project1 employee at the time? Please correct me if I'm wrong. I was never informed that employees are expected to pay for any eventual damage, be it verbally or in writing. Hence, I did not consent to this. 6. I was initially told, when I asked for my money in various emails, that D. didn't agree to paying several invoices due to them amounting to too much. This then changed when I was told that actually D. does not want to pay £300 due to problems discovered on a couple of jobs I attended to. This then changed again, only one property remained, instead of the two. What am I supposed to understand from all this? The info I get is pretty contradictory and changes all the time. 7. I have had discussions with former employees of yours and they have confirmed that I am not the only one that is owed money and who has had to wait a long time begging for them. There seem to be a recurrent problem with paying invoices/salaries on time. 8. I am starting to realize that I have not taken everything into account when calculating the money owed me by Project1. No one should have to be subjected to this kind of treatment. I will seek legal advice in this matter, as it is getting beyond simple work-pay disputes. It has started to affect me and my family mentally, I am spending a lot of time seeking advice online and I can't concentrate on my work properly anymore. I cannot spend time with my family due to having to spend time writing to you, asking for money and researching my rights online. 9. I think the time for amiable negotiation has passed and all you are doing is trying to pressurize and bully me into accepting less money that I am entitled to. This is not OK. I think the best place to continue this conversation is in court, with a judge presiding. Only there reason will prevail. This has gone on for too long. I will no longer entertain any more correspondence coming from your office, if you keep offering me less than what I am owed, We seem to be running around in circles and getting nowhere. I do expect a deposit for the £2323.68 sum that is outstanding by the 26th of this month. Should you fail to pay by then, I will recalculate the sum and add interest to date, while forwarding this matter onto the HM Courts & Tribunals Service, Money Claim Online.' End of email. As I said, I will be taking this matter as far as needed. I am not afraid of fighting for my money. As a side note, while researching all this online, I realized a funny thing: I am not sure whether I am still an employee of this firm or not. How I came about working for them is thus: as I said in the beginning of this thread, I was initially subcontracting as a professional handyman for a few months. And then he offered me to work as part of the team. It was a verbal contract, but my research turned out that verbal contracts are just as binding as written ones. Just less clear, as there are no hard and fast rules that one has agreed to by signing. Nevertheless, I was their employee. Seeing that I left due to not receiving any pay and they didn't fire me, technically I should still be an employee of theirs. Although no contract was signed, one was in existence. Hence, they not dissolving my contract with any verbal or written notice, I think that I could walk in any day and start working again and they could not do anything about it. Theoretically. What do you guys think? This presumption also opens the door for me to ask for recourse and compensation at an employment tribunal, seeing that I was employed at the time and no longer working as a self-employed person. I will be researching this further tomorrow, as it is kinda late and need to hit the sack. Best regards to you all and good night for now. Cheers, Mike

Hi martin and renegadeimp. Funny I got your replies in quick succession, just as I came off the phone with Safe Collections, a debt recovery agency that I contacted. Guess what the owner of the company, Sid House advised me to do? Not to bother with debt collection, but to go to Money Claim Online. Nice to see there are still upright people out there, despite working in an industry that has such a bad rep. The guy seemed a very nice man and spent 5 min on the phone with me for free, giving me good advice. OK, I am definitely going to go to the end with this, I am not letting this scoundrel get away with my hard earned money. I am going to look for a lba template now and send it off to MCO just as soon as I borough some money to pay their fee. As it happens, I just got hit by the rent DD on the 10th and what's left in the account won't cover it. Oh well, at least I have learned a lot from this and in the future I know how to fight things like this a bit better. Thanks to you all again, I will keep you posted.

Thank you for the replies guys. Having looked around on the internet, I came across Contractorcalculator.co.uk. According to them, I should contact a debt recovery agency as my next step, before sending a LBA. Also, the interest that I can claim is 0.40 a day, meaning I can only ask for £108 to date. That doesn't seem very fair, seeing that the company that has withheld the money has caused me and my family financial hardship, plus a lot of stress and aggravation. According to Lovetts: 'The compensation you can claim You can claim compensation for every invoice that was not paid within the credit period. You can claim compensation even if the invoice has now been paid. Remember, you have up to 6 years to claim the compensation! The amount of compensation you can claim is:- Invoice Amount Compensation Up to £999.99 £40 per invoice that interest could be charged on each individual invoice, up to £40 per invoice.' Seeing that I have issued 8 invoices that have not been paid to date, it would make much more sense to get 8x40=£320 instead. Does anyone know more about this? Contractorcalculator.co.uk recommend using Creditsafe as debt collector. I have contacted them and awaiting reply. I have also contacted IPSE(association of Independent Professionals and the Self Employed) to ask for their help in the matter, also awaiting reply.

Hello everyone. I am brand new here, so please don't be too harsh on me if I make mistakes. Anticipated thanks to anyone kind enough to offer advice in the matter, your help is appreciated. I will try to keep this short, while still giving enough info to create a helpful context. 1. My story: I worked as a self-employed professional handyman last year, sub-contracting for a maintenance/construction company called Project1. It all went well for the first 2-3 months: I was working around 10 hours a week for them, being paid a month's wages in hand, on a hourly rate. They then started giving me increasingly more work as time went by. Then one day, I get a call from the owner/director of the firm and he offers me to work full time for them. He said he would pay me a set day's rate, give me a company van and fuel expenses, plus a card for buying materials. Being taken by surprise and being a Friday, I said I would like to consider it over the week-end. I eventually accepted and started working under that arrangement, with him saying that he will come to meet with me on Monday to talk all about it. Days went by and while he kept telling me over the phone that he will come and discuss the details with me, he never did. I kept being sent to various sites to do various tasks, but I was still using my car and my petrol and my money to buy materials, while I was working for the agreed rate, which should have included van/petrol/expenses. The new arrangement also Included that I get paid at the end of every week, rather than after a month, as it had been before. But although everyone else was getting paid every Friday, my wages never turned up. About 3 weeks later, realizing he was all talk and no walk, I informed him that unless I get what was agreed upon, I will no longer turn up for work. By this time I was owed over £3000 and my patience was wearing thin. I hear nothing from the man himself or from the office, but the day I walk out I get a surprise deposit in my bank account, a £1700 lump sum from a job I had done about 2 months back, while still working on a hourly basis. I thought to myself that my ultimatum had worked and that he will start being more upfront, but after waiting a few days, no communication was received. I never did any work for Project1 after this. 2. Action to date: for the last 9 months, since June 2015 when I sent in my last invoice, I have been engaged in e-mail communications with their office. They played all the tricks in the book, bending backwards to try and delay payment. -they asked me what my rates were again -told me that the director was not available -that the temporary worker has dealt with the invoices and they are not up to date on the latest -disputed invoices done the same day under the pretext that the amount was too high to be paid for a days work, despite the jobs having been performed at various locations and under the agreed hourly rate -asked for the invoices to be resent -asked me to call the director and have a chat with him over the phone about payment(which I declined, stating that I would like all our conversations to be in written form) 3. Latest: Early March this year I informed them that I will start legal action to recover my money, should they not pay the outstanding amount of £1700 within 7 days. They did reply saying that they will only agree to pay me £1400, as they would be deducting £300 for repairs that they had to go back and fix on a couple of jobs. I wrote back and asked for exact details, what jobs, who reported, when that was, how it was established it was due to my fault and how each deduction was calculated. I was pretty intrigued by the fact that this was suddenly coming up 9 months later, just as they decided to pay me what they owed. I knew for a fact that there had been nothing wrong with the jobs I performed, as I always inspect a job on completion. They replied regarding one job, while mentioning the other no longer. I asked them why I should have to pay in the first place, since the company had liability insurance and I was working for them at that time. They gave me a 'take it or leave it' reply, stating that they will not negotiate or enter into any further correspondence. I didn't really want to accept the offer, but by this time I was fed up with the struggle and decided some money is better than no money, so I accepted. I never got any reply, but 2 days later I get a cheque through the post, for the £1400 they said they would pay. I deposit it, only to have it bounce, due to 'the name of the payee not being the same as the account holder'. Grrrrrrr...apparently, they had spelled my name wrong...which they did. So I write to them again, informing of the result and suggesting they transfer the money, rather than pay by cheque. That was on the 9th of April and still no reply as yet. No deposit has been made and no new cheque issued. They are now completely ignoring me, despite another email sent, informing them that I will be starting legal procedures, in order to recuperate the £1700, plus interest and any additional expenses. I have been spending the last few days researching online, which is great, as I got to learn a few interesting things. But it's also a bit unsettling, as I would not want to make a mistake and give them an opportunity to keep my money even longer than they have already. My next action is to write them a LBA today, as suggested on Lovell's site. Wait 7 days and then take it through to moneyclaim.gov.uk if no reply. What do you think, is this the correct approach? Thanks, Michael