Unpaid invoices from a letting Agent we did work for

[asdanemma]

HI, Sorry if not ciorrect forum, Ill try to keep it short

we had been supplying our services to an independant letting agent for 4 months until we were dropped after a complaint was raised against one of their staff.

Now they wont pay their last 2 invoices despite us jumping through hoops to keep sending it and changing the layoiut etc so they could understand. ( they had always paid us before until the fallout)

They are now refusing to pay part of it as we threatened if we did not recieve by close of business last night then we would go to small claims court.

They claim that we cant charge for 6 smoke alarms we have supplied, it is in the terms and conditions that we were to put them up if missing in properties and we were instructed to do this at the very first meeting.

They claim we cant claim for cancelled appointments but our T&C's state we can. In fact everything they are trying to get out off ( over £1000) worth on the invoice is covered by our T&C's that was handed over at the first meeting and witnessed by 2 other people and the director ( who now denies it) . Our T&C's also state that once instructed by this company then we have deemed to be in a contract. They are claiming they didnt sign anything but no one signs T&C's .of their complaints procedure as advised but to no avail. We have done everything but they just bully us and are nasty in their emails ( which we have kept)

We have also reported them to their governing trade body and have requested a copy

Anyhow, so off to court it is, they want us to go through their solicitor, we cant afford to as we are a small independent business, they owe us £4500 and we can only just manage to cover the court application fee.

My questions are, do we have to go through his solicitor? Can we just apply to the court for the amount owed. ?

Many thanks

[BankFodder]

First of all, please could you be a little bit more careful about spacing out your story. You've been here since 2008 and you must know how difficult it is to read solid or nearly solid blocks of text.

 

Please will you tell us what kind of company you are operating and whether you are a limited company or partnership/sole trader.

 

Please could you list out in a bullet pointed form the services that you have supplied and for which you haven't been paid.

 

Please could you identify which of those services/items you have supplied and for which there is written evidence that they were asked for – and which of them you supplied but for which there is no written evidence.

 

In principle there is no need to have contracts agreed in writing or signed – although it is helpful evidentially.

 

You don't have to go through their solicitors. You can go directly to the County Court and if the value of the claim plus interest is less than £10,000 then it will be allocated the small claims track in which case if you lose, you will only be liable for your own fees – not the other sides even if they have instructed solicitors.

 

Don't worry about their trade body. They aren't there to help you and in any case, they aren't interested in this kind of thing.

 

Have they tried to tell you that you must go through their solicitor?

 

Who are the letting agents?

[asdanemma]

Thank you and sorry.

I will update tomorrow

First of all, please could you be a little bit more careful about spacing out your story. You've been here since 2008 and you must know how difficult it is to read solid or nearly solid blocks of text.

 

Please will you tell us what kind of company you are operating and whether you are a limited company or partnership/sole trader.

 

Please could you list out in a bullet pointed form the services that you have supplied and for which you haven't been paid.

 

Please could you identify which of those services/items you have supplied and for which there is written evidence that they were asked for – and which of them you supplied but for which there is no written evidence.

 

In principle there is no need to have contracts agreed in writing or signed – although it is helpful evidentially.

 

You don't have to go through their solicitors. You can go directly to the County Court and if the value of the claim plus interest is less than £10,000 then it will be allocated the small claims track in which case if you lose, you will only be liable for your own fees – not the other sides even if they have instructed solicitors.

 

Don't worry about their trade body. They aren't there to help you and in any case, they aren't interested in this kind of thing.

 

Have they tried to tell you that you must go through their solicitor?

 

Who are the letting agents?

[asdanemma]

Terms _ Conditions.pdfTo cut a long story short, we have provided a service to a letting agent doing inventories, check outs, and mid term inspections.

We had a fall out after a complaint about one of their staff and they have witheld payment on the invoices.

 

Now, they are challenging parts of the invoice. The main part is where we have supplied and fitted smoke alarms and batteries as per our agreement at the start of our working together and as per our T&C's. They are refusing to pay for them as part of the invoice, £180 worth in March and £10 in April as they sdaid they never wanted them and we had no agreement. We cannot prove the agreement in writing but we have a witness who was at the meeting back in November ( the former lettings manager) willing to testify that was the agreeement.

The company is made up of 2 directors, the one complaining and refusing to pay was not at this meeting but the other director was and stated that we were to replace smoke alarms if needed and batteries and not under any circumstances leave a property un-protected.

As we said, this was back in November and we have been supplying and fitting where needed since then. The company have also paid up until now. We have had monthly meetings where we have been given excellent feedback and at no point was this raised as an issue, nor were we instruced to stop supplying and fitting smoke alarms.

 

We have now been told to contact their solicitor. We will go to small claims but it is a long process and causing much worry. They owe us short of £4500.

We emailed the solicitor this morning giving until close of business on Wednesday 2nd May to pay.

 

I have uploaded our terms and conditions, it clearly states we will supply and fit alarms if instructed ( and we were).

 

They are also disputing a charge of £50 added to the April invoice where iwas requested to undertake 2 accompanined vierwings at a property whilst doing a check out. This took me 1 hour and 20 minutes to do this for them, I am not their employee and they begged me to as one elerly couple had driven over 100 miles to see the property. They were short staffed so i agreed for a cost. No price was agreed though in writing and i have charged £50 for my time which I deem reasonable.

 

I so look forward to stating who the letting agents are but cannot yet.

 

Thanks

[asdanemma]

It does state in our terms and conditions that once insytructed a contract is deemed to exist

 

Professional Inventory Management Services Ltd (PiMS Ltd) shall be entitled to charge a fee to the person, persons or company who has given the instruction. If the instructions are given by a landlord, letting agent or any third party, this contract is deemed to be made between Professional Inventory Management Services Ltd (PiMS Ltd) and any of these parties as the principle unless agreed otherwise in writing with Professional Inventory Management Services Ltd.

 

INSTRUCTION CONDITIONS

Professional Inventory Management Services Ltd (PiMS Ltd) can accept instructions from the Client via e-mail, telephone, SMS or the Client's own system via API. Once an instruction is received, a contract is deemed to exist between Professional Inventory Management Services Ltd (PiMS Ltd) and the Client subject to these terms and conditions. All instructions will be recorded in KMS, any errors contained within this system or within written confirmation not corrected by the Client upon receipt will be the responsibility of the Client.

[Consett26]

In case you're not already aware of it: the

Late Payment of Commercial Debt Act exists and can be very useful to small businesses

[BankFodder]

Anyway, you don't need to use a solicitor.

 

If you decide to issue your claim – then the best thing to do is to keep it short and then to follow up with a more detailed particulars of claim later on. You can use the MoneyClaim website – register on it now and start drafting your claim so that you can get it as you want and ready to fire off on the expiry of any deadline that you set.

 

Your claim should broadly be:

 

 

The claimants are a XXX describe type of company XXX which were instructed to provide checkout and inventory and related services to the defendant estate agents.

The claimants provided the services and the defendants have refused to pay.

The claimants claim £XXX plus interest

 

that's all you need.

 

You will find that on the MoneyClaim site, there is a checkbox in which you indicate that you will be sending full particulars of claim separately. Check this box.

 

Then separately prepare your particulars of claim, in which you will head it: –

 

 

In the XXX County Court

Claim number XXXX

between

XXX claimant name – claimant

and

XXX – defendants

 

Particulars of Claim

 

The claimants provided the following services:

1. blah blah – value
   
2. blah blah – value
   
3. blah blah – value
    
   Total – £XXX
    
    
   
4. The above services were conducted at the request of the defendants. These requests were made in writing and also at meetings and also verbally by telephone.
    
   The services were carried out but the defendant has refused to pay

 

Statement of truth

 

Signed

 

Dated

 

You might want to put a bit more detail than that but probably not. The important thing about the particulars of claim is that it should contain the basic facts – but there is no point in giving away any more information. Certainly don't get carried away giving your life history. Go and see a therapist that.

 

Provide the minimum amount of information required to start the claim. Don't feed the other side too many cues

 

 

I think that these further particulars of claim have got to be sent off within about seven days of the issue of the claim. Send them to the defendant – recorded delivery.

[asdanemma]

Thanks, we waived £700 of fees that were in our T&C's that we could claim just for quick closure but if they have not paid the invoices by close of business today then we will put a claim in for everything they owe us. We may have legal cover with insurance just waiting to hear. When can we name and shame them and how is best way