As a business can I withdraw my quote?

steveyme

Can anyone advise? I run a small business and gave a written quote to a client. I have also taken a percentage deposit from them. They have a close (4 week) deadline for the work. In the meantime, on a couple of smaller jobs untaken for them prior to the main deposit job, it has become clear they are extremely difficult and demanding, to the point where I feel I would never be able to satisfy their demands on the big project before I am very seriously out of pocket. Although the work I am doing is of a good standard, everything is questioned, investigated and amended many (many) times, sometimes after signoff. I'm quite concerned. If I refund their deposit, am I within my rights to withdraw my quote for the job? I could not have foreseen the problems they would cause when the quote was given, meaning both deadline and budget estimated now fall short.

TBagpuss

What do your terms of business say about cancellation?

If you are saying that the terms of the job they want doing have changed then you would be able to tell them that, and explain that you will need to update the estimate to take into account the changes.

If it is just that you no longer want to do businesswith them then unless you have provision in your contract / terms of business to allow you to withdraw, then they could seek to insist on specifc performance (i.e. for you to do the job agreed at theprice and timescale agreed) or could ask you to cover any additional expense involved in getting it done by someone else.

If you are cuirrently doing work for them then it may be better to challenge their behaviour now - e.g. if they make changes to the original spec then at the point they bring up the change, tell them that that was not what was originally agreed and that you will need to charge extra to carry out the new / different work. (Again, this depends on the bnature of the change and what your current terms of businness say)

bap98189

The answer is in either your terms and conditions or the agreed contract (if there is one).

Did you give them a copy of your T&C's when you submitted your quote?

Does your quote or contract set out precisely the scope of the work? If it does and they are requesting more, then you need to talk to them and explain that if they require more work to be done than is in the agreement then it will incur an additional cost.

getmore4less

Customer changes is where some business make their money.

They make the quotes water tight and very competitive on price but have clear guidance on change and cost.

I think you need to tougher on the current projects and stop the changes.

make it clear that job spec and deadline is based on NO changes.

steampowered

The answer to your question would depend on whether a legally binding contract has been agreed for the work.

A legally binding contract is likely to exist if the client has accepted your proposal. In this scenario, if you were to back-out, the client could in theory claim the difference between your costs and the cost of having the same job done elsewhere.

On the other hand, if the client has not accepted your quote, I would have thought that a contract does not exist yet, allowing you to return the deposit and say you are no longer able to undertake the work.

TELLIT01

I can't say whether you current contract permits you to withdraw without cost, but if you have been allowing customers to make changes after a quote has been given you are asking for trouble.
The quoted price has to be for the work you have been requested to do. Any changes should only be agreed AFTER new costing and delivery date have been negotiated.

ACG

You could maybe send the customer an email/letter to say that because of the issues you have had on previous jobs you will agree a detailed spec in advance and ANY alterations will incur costs.

But write it in such a way that it basically gets their back up so they decide they do not want to deal with you again. They think they have one up on you by telling you to do one and you get to have a huge sigh of relief they are someone elses problem.

paddyrg

ANY scope changes change the grounds for the quote, so mean requoting. You can't agree ABC for £100, then for them to change the requirement to ACD demanding the same price. Explain you can estimate the cost of their changes for free, but it'll just be an estimate. You will requote for £50 (or whatever), and make it clear that continuing will carry extra costs and you're prepared to release them from the contract as a gesture of goodwill in the circumstances