Customer owes £1,000 - what to do?

savemoney

I agree with above post she sounds like she is playing for time

pelirocco

rapido wrote: »

Hi there,

Unfortunately firstly, the garden centre is several hours away, and the plants have likely all been sold (we delivered last June), if any remain, they will most likely be poorly looked after and not worth collecting.

Secondly, most garden centres demand terms such as 30 to 90 day payment. Otherwise they simply won't buy. So payment on/before delivery isn't an option.

However, many thanks for your kind advice. It is most appreciated.

-rapido

You have to be firmer , there is no point doing work if you arent going to get paid . You have said here that MOST garden centres demand credit terms , which is what most of us running businesses come up against . We get over this by credit checking every potential new customer , the ones we are happy with will get credit , but only up to a certain limit until they have a proven payment track record . Any one else , especially if its going to be a one off job have to pay on delivery . We might lose some jobs because of this , but a job is only worth doing if it earns you money .

We also employ a company that will chase our slow payers , you will be amazed how quickly they get results , however that tends to only work on private individuals , big corpororations tend not to take any notice !

Horace

I think you can add all court costs so if you pay for bailiffs etc then you can charge her for that as well.

I wouldnt accept the payment plan because she has already proved that she cannot stick to an agreement. Get the bailiffs in and get them to sieze everything including her vehicles.

hippyadam

rapido wrote: »

I paid the £4 for a copy of the freehold title register of the garden centre, and it's stated that she IS the registered owner, but Natwest is the lender (not sure if that's relevant). Also I wonder who has the leasehold, and if that's relevant.....

But anyway, one last thing, am I guaranteed to get the money if I start the charging order, or is it just like the small claims thing where I have a judgment but still no money?

No what you are doing with the charging order is securing the judgement on her property (much like a mortgage is secured). On the land registry info it sounds like she has a mortgage with natwest on the property.

Basically there needs to be enough equity to pay them and you in the event of a sale, as its only £1000 i should imagine that's a problem (unless you like in an area where property values have decreased markedly in the last 2 years). Leaseholder not really relevant in this case...

As others have said, get the bailiffs out now, instruct them you wont accept a monthly offer as you believe its not genuine and look for them to levy on what they can & report back to you.

hippyadam

rapido wrote: »

I was going to put something like the following in the "any additional information" box at the bottom of the application. I don't know if that's the right way to go about things, or who looks at these applications...:

"I request bailiffs to attend both (house) and (garden centre) at the same address, and seize goods including vehicles, if payment is not made in full. Please note that an instalment payment plan is not to be accepted, as it is unlikely to be kept. To inform me of developments, please ring (number)."

Regarding the property, the title register shows that it's been recently valued between half a million and a million, so I am sure she has the money to pay a £1,000 bill!

That's grand, put the address of both down if they vary in any way (some bailiffs aren't very pro active lol) I'd scrap the bit about part payment (as if she offers it to the bailiff it'll be recorded by the court and it will go against her if she defaults).

So basically pretend you didn't receive her letter offering £100 in march, and send the bailiffs in. If she offers them a payment plan that starts immediately i'd say take it and see if she pays. if she defaults go for the charging order or third party debt order if the house sale has gone through

COOLTRIKERCHICK

i honestly dont know, but if this was me, it is a matter of principle now, and i would go for the short and curlies as well as the jugular:rotfl:

has she used her middle name for one of her so called names?

COOLTRIKERCHICK

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

i honestly dont know, but if this was me, it is a matter of principle now, and i would go for the short and curlies as well as the jugular:rotfl:

has she used her middle name for one of her so called names?

is it worth just using the first name initial and surname from now on?

hethmar

Do you have any legal insurance cover with your business? You could ask CAB for help.

Just to let you know of our own experience. Customer refused to pay £3k as he had demanded we did extra works prior to a deadline which he suddenly set. We couldnt do those works as we were already in a contract to do work for another customer. Basically it was just a rich man being pig headed and deciding we should jump when he shouted.

We took him to small claims court. He ignored all our letters and then on the day that his defence had to be entered he rang the court and said his briefcase containing all the relevant paperwork had been stolen so he needed an extension! Luckily and amazingly, the Court saw through this and found against him in default. Then he didnt pay.

I looked at all the options. In the end we decided the most humiliating and possibly damaging thing for him would be to have an "Oral examination". This involves him having to appear before a Judge to explain all his income and assets and why he hasnt paid us up. If he doesnt appear when requested he can be arrested.

We did all the work ourselves as the solicitors we consulted said we should give up or ask for just 50%.

Anyway to cut a long story short, just before the date of said examination, we had a letter from a very posh London solicitor saying we would get paid up and we did. And I added interest to the amount we wanted.

Very best of luck with yours. It could be that you could put a stop to the sale of her property unless she pays you.

brightonman123

is there any rqupment / vehicles that could be taken away? or the actual plants you sold?

makinga very public gesture of attempts to reposess / restrict her ability to trade may well get some offer of payment.. take cash only!

brightonman123

ps.. may also be worth distributing a few leaftlets around the area, including that business, 'reminding' all customers that the recession is over, green shoots of recovery seen at your centre, all debtors will be shot (last bit optional..)

guilt trip!