How would you react?

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Duda1985

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Hi everyone,

Longtime reader, first time poster.

Just checking if this has happened to any of you guys and how you reacted in the situation.

Some context; me and my partner have been rendering this house in the midlands. It was a bombsite, a 200 year old building with an 90 year old wing and two (very badly constructed) extensions bolted on. So, lime mortar that needs to breathe, portland cement. and new blockwork. Its been coated with sand and cement so brickwork is all blown.

A mess. But they wanted it to look new and match. The price would have been insane, but they hired us on day rate so we could work through all the many problems.

Tale as old as time, we put our invoices in towards the end of the job, but after a fortnight nothings been paid, we still work on being as we are proud of the work not worrying overmuch as they are not always prompt payers but do pay.

Final day, turn up to scratch up final face in the early morning. Find the husband asleep on the sofa, he wakes up, I friendly mention the invoices, he calmly turns round and says " oh my wife hasn't got any money nor have I" he toddles off to make me a coffee expecting me to continue.

I calmly discuss with him that he needs to confirm he has funds to continue. He naturally starts swearing and I coolly say we will be back in twenty minutes after funds have been confirmed. I leave him swearing like a trooper. I take my guys out of the situation. no confirmation was made. work did not continue. face is f**k*d.

I am raging. turns out he hasn't paid the scaffolder, bricklayer or the builder of the prementioned extensions. He just wanted me to make his shithole look great. It does, apart from one face that looks f**k*d because i wouldnt scratch it down for free.

sorry for the novel, but how would you guys react and have you had this happen to you?
 
If the scaffold is still up go back and take the f**k**g lot off that you applied,it’s his house but your materials until he’s paid for them,you ain’t getting any money out of this t**t by the sound of it it’s not criminal damage to take the render off he refuses to pay for it’s a civil matter
 
*I'm English myself. But the type of English person that will only pay for stuff when I have the money for it. Not expect people to keep grafting for free.
 
Stewie03 said:
If the scaffold is still up go back and take the f**k**g lot off that you applied,it’s his house but your materials until he’s paid for them,you ain’t getting any money out of this t**t by the sound of it it’s not criminal damage to take the render off he refuses to pay for it’s a civil matter
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The trouble is that they're not legally your materials once they've been applied to someone else's property.
 
Just shy of 4 k labour. turns out he owes the builder 16k and the scaffolder 800. The builder believes he can work out a payment plan with him. Its crazy. The scaffolder is smashing a ton of render off when he brings the scaff down. Massive house, very affluent area. Its crazy when I write it down.
 
what can do first ,is get a debt company to send for immediate payment
as most peeps are shivering clowns- mostly this works .

If not ,sell the debt .
 
The last resort is to take a charge out on the property, This is marked on the properties deeds and has to be settled before the property can be sold.
You should never have got your self in this position in the first place.
 
Thing is they were paying as the job progressed. They must always try to skip the final payments for everyone. The only consolation is that one massive face isn't scratched down and looks f**k*d.

Whatever renderer that looks at fixing it will wonder what happened there and probs tell them to f**k off.

I know malc, but you never think that c**ts like this exist until you experience it. Its a lesson that i needed to learn. Thank you for your advice I will look into how to go about taking a charge out.

Thanks for the advice guys. Much appreciated.
 
Duda1985 said:
Thing is they were paying as the job progressed. They must always try to skip the final payments for everyone. The only consolation is that one massive face isn't scratched down and looks f**k*d.

Whatever renderer that looks at fixing it will wonder what happened there and probs tell them to f**k off.

I know malc, but you never think that c**ts like this exist until you experience it. Its a lesson that i needed to learn. Thank you for your advice I will look into how to go about taking a charge out.

Thanks for the advice guys. Much appreciated.
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Photos?
 
Probably not what you’d want to hear but -

  1. You should have finished the work
  2. Invoice as normal
  3. When payment doesn’t arrive invoice again with reasonable time to settle
  4. Invoice again, if needs be with a final request ie 14 days.
  5. Either send a pre-action protocol from the courts via MCOL (this asks them to give reason for none payment and chance to counter claim) or instruct a professional debt collection agency to do this on your behalf.
  6. If it goes to small claims, hope you win and then get a CCJ on them.
  7. If you want to take it further you can then (ask the courts again) to send high court enforcement round to start seizing assets.
Theres also Stat demands but I think that’s just on Ltd companies.

Not sure on charges on properties either, something I’ve never looked at.

Don’t remove render as it is classed as criminal damage and you certainly won’t get paid.

By not finishing the work, if you decided to go down the legal route you’ve inadvertently given them a reason not to pay.

Courts look down on tradesmen’s walking away.

Been there, done that and got the T shirt.

The state of the law is awful for tradesmen and heavily biased towards the customer.

Good luck
 
Worth adding don’t go threatening them with court, either send the paperwork or don’t.

Courts take a very dim view of people threatening with court as it looks like your using the courts to get money out of people.

You can claim (maybe) £60-£80 for late payment if the final deadline missed.

Interest can’t just be made up either, you can charge 8% plus the Bank of England base rate (5%) on the debt annually and charge it daily.

So if you owed £4000.00 the interest you can charge would be 13% per year £520.00 total, divide the £520 by 365 days you can charge a whopping ……

£1.43 per day
 
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It was a big mistake not finishing the work. The client will just employ another plasterer to finish the job and they will tell the client that they need almost all of your payment to complete the work.
Dont piss about with county courts total waste of time. Either wheel the couple down to their bank to apply for a loan or file for them to be declared bankrupt .
 
hector said:
welllll yes , tinytom i can see where you are coming from, but i got arrested for grabbing hold of someone/threatening him, but, i did not hit him, got charged with common assault and fined 184.00 quid,
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I f**k**g knew you were trouble the first time I clapped eyes on you.
 
hector said:
welllll yes , tinytom i can see where you are coming from, but i got arrested for grabbing hold of someone/threatening him, but, i did not hit him, got charged with common assault and fined 184.00 quid,
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but did you get your money off him
 
Thanks guys, I really appreciate the advice given.

Chalked this one up to experience. Everyone was chasing them for money, but I was so proud of our work and it looked really good ( and they were paying us) it was stupid of me to think they wouldn't do the same to us eventually.

Maybe I should have finished, but this isn't their first time doing this. They know how the courts favour the customer, and they do this all the time. I just worked out they were doing the same to me on the last day.

Part of me, inside must have wanted to show them what happens when they work like this. Our job is stupidly physical compared to most trades, and we take pride in it. To have a customer say "we haven't got any money" to my face and expect me to continue is insane.

I knew I couldn't hit him, nor likely win in court without huge effort and cost, so I walked away.

Some customers are great, some are s**t.
 
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