Run a small construction co. - client won't pay final invoice. - help RE: Small claims please ***Resolved***

[BankFodder]

I have proposed an edit which is in bold in your draft letter.

 

You must make it clear that you are not letting go of your deadline and of course when the deadline expires, you must be as good as your word. Otherwise you lose all credibility

[BankFodder]

Well I would tend to respond to him that you are happy to answer his questions and to maintain a dialogue which will help to solve the problem.
However, you have been attempting to have this dialogue for some considerable time now and and so far he has not joined in any particular exchange.
I should then give him the answers that you have suggested above in a clear tabulated point by point list – making it clear that everything has been done on advice and in consultation with him.
You notice that he is asking lots of questions but has not raised any objections to anything and he should understand that although you are very keen to clear up any remaining points with him, this could have been done a lot earlier and you will not now be moved from the deadline which you set out in your letter of claim.

You could say to him that if it helps, he should identify those aspects of the work with which he is completely satisfied and settle the bill in respect of those in order to mitigate his situation and to reduce any dispute to a minimum.
You suggest to him at that point that he should then bring in his own independent expert for an assessment of the situation. He will need to do that anyway and at his own expense if he wants to defend the matter in court.

If he is prepared to do that then you are prepared to extend your deadline by a further 14 days to resolve any outstanding concerns, but as things stand, you will be issuing your claim on XXX date and that point he will become liable not only for the amount of the outstanding invoice but also for the court fees which have necessarily been incurred.

Tell him that all of this correspondence will be brought to the attention of the court.

 

I should hold off suggesting that the system might have been larger than he needed. There is probably no need to refer to this – let him bring it up but importantly, he was fully informed

[BankFodder]

So what work is the actually withholding payment on?

[BankFodder]

Does this work or as a basis for some modified version

 

  

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So far, despite my repeated questions to you you have not expressed any objections to any of the work which has been carried out.

When I begin my court action against you you will have to do this and it seems a shame that it will take the commencement of litigation to persuade you to express the misgivings of the problems you have with settling my bill.

If you feel that you have some particular objection then now is the chance to say it in order to save the addition of court costs to the judgement debt which you will inevitably incur.
If your objection covers the entire amount of the unpaid invoice then please say so and say what your objections are.
If you object only to a portion of the invoice then I suggest that your best interests will be served by expressing those objections and also paying the amount of the invoice to which you don't object in order to mitigate your eventual loss in court.

However you should understand that even though you now appear to be embarking on an exchange with me, it is quite clear that this has only happened because I have now given you a deadline for court action.
I'm very happy to continue dialogue with you that you should understand that in view of your unwillingness to discuss this matter properly I'm not prepared to be deflected from my deadline for court action.

If you express an objection to part of the invoice then if you're prepared to pay the undisputed amount immediately then I will be prepared to extend the deadline for my court action by 14 days.

It's up to you. I'm not sure that I can say anything more.

Please understand all of this correspondence will be shown to the court

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BankFodder]

edit in red

[BankFodder]

I don't understand this

 

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And  a month passed after that with silence from them despite my asking for some basic information such as what they meant by "commisioned" and when I could expect for this to take place 

 

You say that no cost of installation was discussed – but you did install it. There is an implied term that where a price has not been agreed then a reasonable price will be implied.

Would you say that the price that you apply to this installation was reasonable? Would you be able to substantiate that by getting comparative quotes?

How does the price of the pump – the expensive solution – compare with the price of changing the existing drains? No he seems to be mentioning figures here.

Your initial response about respecting your obligations under the consumer rights act is a more than good enough answer. We will also go on to point out that they have a reciprocal contractual duty to pay you within a certain amount of time.
Payment so far I understand has been made within how many days of the invoice being submitted? And how many invoices?

[BankFodder]

I'm afraid that I won't be able to go through The drawings etc.

 

We can only help you on the legal aspects, but in terms of actually making your case, that really will be completely up to you.

I hope you don't think I'm being unhelpful.

 

In terms of the consumer rights act, you have a legal obligation to exercise reasonable skill and care in every aspect of the contractual work that you undertake .

So if you are advising or suggesting a particular solution then you have to take reasonable skill and care with that.

If you then actually have to do the installation you have to exercise reasonable skill and care with that as well.

 

The work must be carried out in a timely manner.

I think it is very significant that this guy has not actually raised any objections at all in all of your exchanges or at any point during the carrying out of the work.

 

It is very important not to be derailed from your deadline for starting action because this is what he is trying to do .

When does your deadline expire?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BankFodder]

Who commissioned the work which was done by others?

[BankFodder]

Yes, if you win then you will recover your court costs.

 

Don't forget the in addition to the crane fee, there will be a hearing fee if it goes that far .

If you win then you will recover that as well

 

[BankFodder]

You are responsible for any work which you contracted to do and for which he paid money to you. If you subcontracted some of the work and you were paid by the client and you then had to pay the subcontractors, you would then be liable for the work of the subcontractors.

If you make recommendations as to other workers and he decided to take them on any dealt with them directly and pay them directly then his contract is directly with them and nothing to do with you.

I suppose that if one of the workers was so poor in the quality of what they did, he might have a case for coming to you for your negligent recommendation.

You certainly should have registered with the money claim website by now and you should be drafting your claim.

Of course post up the draft of your claim here before you send it off.

It doesn't need to be very long or detailed. Keep it scant

[BankFodder]

No I don't think it works very well.

Anyway you shouldn't be distracted by this you should have your response to his most recent letter out of the door by now. It's taking far too long.. You should be batting them back almost instantly.

It is that approach which is producing any kind of results. It's now been over 24 are since he last wrote to you I think and you haven't responded. This means that he believes that he has given you cause for pause. You are letting him take control again

[BankFodder]

We know what he said. We need to know what your response is going to be

Can you remind us as to when you presented the unpaid invoice and by what date would you normally have expected to have been paid

[BankFodder]

Would you say that the testing of the drains was an implied term of the contract – as a precursor to being paid?

[BankFodder]

Okay, the points you have made a fair enough.

Does this letter work?

 

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I'm still waiting for you to raise specific objections to the work of the quality of the work which has been carried out.
Despite asking you many times to do precisely this you appear merely to have dodge the issue.

I'm fully aware of my responsibilities under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and if you can show in some way that I've fallen short of these responsibilities then once again you have an opportunity to let me know but so far you have not indicated anything.

You have asked me a question as to what I consider are my responsibilities. I have now told you for the second time in this email. If you don't understand what this response abilities are then you should probably look at the act in order to understand what your reasonable expectations are as a consumer of services.

At the time the contracted works were agreed and also while they were underway, there was never any discussion as to the need for drains to be tested.
I'm not aware that you have put this work in hand but in any event, it is also an implied term of any contract that accounts will be settled within a reasonable time.
I would say that our established practice whereby I supplied you with a weekly invoice and you settled the invoice within a very few days as laid down but can now be reasonably expected as a binding contractual term.

The invoice which you have so far declined to pay was submitted to you three months ago. You have only recently started talking about inspecting the drains and even then it has only really been in response to my letter of claim – which you suggest has damaged the bond of trust between us.

I can assure you that if the drains are tested and they are found to be wanting in some way that I will cooperate completely because as I have already explained, I'm fully aware of my statutory obligations to you and also I'm fully aware of best practice as a professional businessman who wants the best for his clients and also wants to manage his own professional reputation and the best way possible.

I'm not sure what else I can say to you except to remind you once again that my deadline for court action will expire on Friday.
I have already invited you to make a part payment in respect of work which you consider you are completely happy with and in exchange for that I would be prepared to extend by deadline the court action by a maximum of further 14 days.

Let me warn you that if you decide to make a part payment, it will only be accepted as being a payment on account. I will not be prepared to accept payment in full settlement of the invoice.

Once I issue the claim you should be aware that not only will you be liable for the claim fee and hearing costs incurred also the costs of any expert reports which might reasonably be requested or you might reasonably decide to commission.
I claim against you will also include a claim for interest which is currently awarded on the County Court scale at 8% per annum from the date that the outstanding sum was due.

Yours blah blah blah

 

[BankFodder]

Why should you want to say that you are happy to take responsibility for certain works which you have carried out? You've already said that by saying that you consider yourself done by the obligations contained in the consumer rights act.

I don't think it's any more and I certainly don't think you should say anything such as – that you are happy to do something which almost looks as if you are putting yourself out and asking for some kind of forbearance.

As long as you are confident that when you issue the claim he won't defend on some aspects of the work which he considers to be inadequate.

Of course you will be able to demonstrate that the court that you have given him ample opportunity to make any concerns very clear before you issue the claim and that he has in fact forced you to litigate.

[BankFodder]

Once you have sent off the letter, check over the suggested particulars of claim below

 

 

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The claimant carried out a series of agreed works on the defendant's property over a period of XXX weeks at a cost of XXX pounds per week to be invoice weekly and settled very shortly after.
This arrangement worked well for XX weeks and the defendant expressed no misgivings about the quality of the work.
On the submission of the final invoice value £XXX on XXX date the defendant has so far failed to pay despite the fact that there has now been a delay of three months.
The claimant has made extensive attempts to hold a dialogue with the defendant to understand what objections there might be. The defendant has broadly ignored the claimant's exchanges until the letter of claim was issued, but despite this, no discernible objections to any of the work have been made and yet the defendant continues to refuse to pay the invoice.

The defendant is fully aware of all works which have been carried out and has been supplied with all documentation.
The claimant seeks the value of the outstanding invoice £XXX plus interest to pursuant to section 69 of the County Court act 1984 from the due payment date – DD/MM/AA, plus costs.

 

 

[BankFodder]

Well at least you are getting a result and you have called their bluff.

This is where it has been going all along .

They really thought that they would get away with everything .

In terms of the materials left on site, I don't really understand what the situation is with them so maybe you could explain specifically.

 

 

Also, how was their offer made? Was it made in full and final settlement? Was it made without prejudice? Was it made in confidence?

Maybe you can post up the full text of their offer

 

 

 

[BankFodder]

Yes, the whole thing was very drawn out and I'm quite sure that that was the deliberate intention of your client .

Well done on getting the payment that you did. I'm sure that it's much more than your client expected to have to pay you .

If you want to go back and sort out the materials which are still on site or which should still be on site then. Please let us know .

To get that, your client is the bailee of those items and has responsibilities to them and to you