Help please - Rogue Customers Again!!!

cozasmom

Hi - just wondered how it was going ? any further news re your prblem, have you managed to get your money yet ?

breezeblock

Hi. Have tried all ways round to sort this amicably. Sent all emails accepting my estimate, copies of estimate, but they still insist ridiculous amounts of work should be done within the price. Am going to cab to get legal advice and take it from there. I have everything in black and white. Everyone whos seen the original estimate and their list of demands just laughs. eg. installing central heating includes replacing all lead pipes from house to road??????? Will let you know what advice I'm given.

baldelectrician

Get firm

Send invoice recorded delivery (if you haven't already done this). Remember to include all the work and the extras.

Send 7 day notice (recorded)

Send it to court

They may pay up when they know you are serious about the court thing.

vivatifosi

Good luck Breezeblock,

I've had to threaten small claims action three times. Strangely they've all paid up before going to court. In fact the same has happened to most other people I've known who has threatened. When you're in the right, you're in the right. You'll be surprised how quickly for the sake of £80 or whatever the current rate is, you can get people to think straight.

Make sure that you send your demand titled "Letter Before Action"

emmy05

sorry about your dilemna and i have no advice for you, but does anyone remember that one builder on GMTV who wasnt paid for his building work of a porch? they filmed him demolishing it ...........
got the link here to look at on youtube
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=kZbkFHcK0Ew

simpywimpy

Ive been in a similar situation from the reverse as the customer. Your contract with the customer is based on what you agreed to do with the estimate. The key here is the word estimate. Unless the customer has a quotation, you can literally charge what you want as you have only estimated the costs for the work. As long as it is within reason for all the jobs you have done, it will stand up in court.

My builders walked off without completing and I was left with more work to do than I had money left in the kitty. Solicitors told me I didn't have a leg to stand on solely because I only had an estimate. If I was to try and get some money back, they would just put the bill up!

McKneff

i hesitate to post as i only know a little about this sort of thing.
my i say that you are in a good position because you say "estimate"throughtout your post. i think things would have been different if the word "quote" was used. If someone comes along to shoot me down, thats fine.

Gloomy_Past_Bright_Future

Just want to give you a little advice of what happened to us, on our first job too, which again was for a "friend"...

He paid us 50% up front and 50% was due on completion which was £3k...

Again he was the main contractor, we were sub contracting..... he got fined from the people who we were working for, and subsequently, didn't pay us the final 50%, even though we adhered to everything that was agreed to..

No matter how much we tried we could not get the money out of him.. Anyway with a sister as a solicitor, I was not a good person to cross!, so we found a loophole through the sale of goods act, which basically states that the seller retains title of ownership of the goods and the buyer does not have the right to sell them on unless they are paid for...

So we wrote to the company concerned, (a massive multi million pound turnover company too), and told them this and advised them that we were attending site to remove our property as we had not signed over title of ownership. They got their hotshot city lawyers onto it, threatened court action everything, (yes we were carping it!), but we stood our ground, told them we were attending with police officers to ensure their property was not damaged, and in the end we got our money!!!!:T

Not from the main contractor I may add, but what did happen is that the company took him to court and made him bankrupt!!:beer:


Anyway as it was too our first job, we learnt the hard way, and now on every single quotation we state that goods will be removed if payment is not made, and they have to sign to agree to that.

Good Luck

GPBF