Customer reneging on verbal contract

bluedodge

Twelve months ago I gave a written estimate to a customer to renew his flat roof. He then asked me to effect a temporary repair to last through the winter, which I did & for which he paid me. He further contacted in March this year to ask me to go ahead with the original job I had estimated for. I have now purchased the materials (over £1000.00) & when I contacted him to say I was ready to do the job he said he has had someone else do it.
Am I within my rights to recover the money for the materials?

gas4you

Honestly, I do not know the answer to this one.

I always state in my quotes that the customer must give a written acceptance of the quote, allowing for the legal 7 day cooling off period, before I will order any parts/materials.

If the worst happens, use this as a learning curve. Unfortunately there are plenty of rogue customers out there and we have to sadly treat them all as if they are rogues.

Strange though that there seems to be a lack of programs on tv titled 'customers from hell'!!

ormus

were any time scales mentioned?
from march to july to purchase the materials seems a bit odd?
i assume your flat roof materials are the bog standard ones?

mkaibear

bluedodge wrote: »

Am I within my rights to recover the money for the materials?

Extremely unlikely unless you have something signed by the customer.

If he contacted you in writing in March to confirm the order and didn't state any timescales at that point (though I would agree March-July seems a bit long!) then you may have some comeback.

justjohn

Always take a deposit for materials. Unless they are a regular

oz0707

people presume your a cowboy if you want money before any works. double edged sword.

justjohn

small deposit is all it needs...

booty40uk

No come back at all unless you draw up a contract of some description. I have had similar problems in the past but all you can do is learn from it.

Entirely agree that ther should be a "customers from hell" programme on TV.

Andy

heretolearn_2

Were you staying in touch? How come it took you 4 months to get to the job? Did you ell the customer you wouldn't be able to do it until now?

If not, if they asked you to do a job and then never heard anything from you, it's fair enough they went elsewhere. But if you did agree all this, then they've broken their contract. You could try small claims court but it would be your word against theirs, and also you'd be lucky to get full value of materials as presumably you could use them elsewhere/return them/sell them on

iamcornholio

A verbal agreement is as good as a written one. The only problem is proving what was agreed.

It seems that your only chance would be a claim in the county court - and as you've got £1000 riding on this it will be worth the £80 court fee, and then state your case.

But as others have noted, there seems to be a long spell between when you were give the go-ahead and when you actually got around to buying the stuff

noapron

Didn't you say that you gave a written estimate? When some time ago, we were having work done on the house, we were told that an estimate is not binding, and that a customer (us in this case), for their own protection, should get a written itemised quote - which is binding on both sides, i.e. the tradesman can't add hundreds to the bill and the customer has signed an acceptance of a price, the details of which are clearly set out so there is no misunderstanding. I don't really know if this is right in legal terms, but certainly 20 years ago it is what we were told.