Client threatening legal action

[anksta]

Hi, a client I had about a year ago for a few months for some general digital consultancy work ghosted me for a few months on the last payment. The invoice was in November and he just disappeared until February, I finally managed to pin him down when I threatened to take legal action.

He called me and explained an ex employee had taken them to court and they'd lost a lot of money so they were exceptionally tight, he said that he'd be willing to pay me half now and the rest the next month. I said OK as long as I don't have to chase for it and he agreed. I followed this up with an email saying "as per the call you agree to pay half now and half next month" to which he replied "this has been done" and nothing else (referring to the half payment which he did).

Fast forward until the end of March and I have heard nothing further, I started to chase him again and again got completely ghosted. At this point I'd had enough and spoke to some recovery company who did manage to get in contact with him.

At this point the guy says that he isn't sure why we billed him for our reporting and that he doesn't think he should have to pay.

What we did was work with his team to investigate issues with the site, report our changes and then present them back once a month. His team weren't great to work with so each month we were writing 40+ slide presentations with recommendations, actions and results etc. and this, including the 2 hour plus presentation, took a long time. In the contract it stated that the 6 pillars - website, social, seo, etc. would be written up in a presentation. The only reason we even billed for this in the first place is I wanted to demonstrate how much time we were dedicating to holding their hands, in hindsight obviously I should have just put this in the other line items but whatever. He never once mentioned that was an issue until that call in February when he raised it as an aside, I explained this was common practice and he immediately agreed that it was fine.

Now the collection company has reviewed the contract, our presentations etc. and agrees that he should pay the full amount but the guy is resisting and now says he's sought legal advice and believes he has a claim to reclaim all the money we billed him for. The collections guy seems to be on my side but is being very coy about what would happen if this did proceed to court, I'm not sure whether this is because he thinks the guy has a case or because they're only equipped to do the initial arguing and wouldn't be able to go to court.

What does everyone think? I'm no lawyer but I cannot see how this guy can just ignore us, then agree to pay, then just ignore the contract?

Thanks for reading

[jmo21]

IANAL, but you have emails where he has agreed to pay the outstanding amount. Why didn't he raise the "issues" then etc.#

Sounds like they are trying it on.

[Scruff]

Has he paid half of you final invoice, which he is now disputing, some months later? If so, stand your ground, since his email, and subsequent payment towards that invoice indicate the validation of the contract.

IANAL.

[anksta]

IANAL, but you have emails where he has agreed to pay the outstanding amount. Why didn't he raise the "issues" then etc.#

Sounds like they are trying it on.

He didn't agree to pay the outstanding amount in the email, I said "you agree to pay half now and half later" and he said "this has been done" I expect on purpose.

It definitely sounds to me like they're trying it on.

[anksta]

Has he paid half of you final invoice, which he is now disputing, some months later? If so, stand your ground, since his email, and subsequent payment towards that invoice indicate the validation of the contract.

IANAL.

Yeah and he's paid us over 10x that amount before, I invoiced him 6 times I think. He underpaid one as my VAT registration was still being sorted, so technically owes me another 500 quid for that too but I let that slide as that wasn't his fault.

This is just the final 50% of the final invoice.

[sal]

I doubt that you will get definitive answer from anyone here without full details of contract and work done. Even then I wouldn't rely on "the Internet" for legal advice.

Not sure why you are dismayed at the debt collection agency not being able to give you advice on something other than debt collection.

That being said, seems like your Client is a taking his legal advice from "the Internet" seeing how (at least according to him) his financial trouble started after being sued by ex-employee. And now is chancing counter-suit claims to scare you away.

I can somehow understand how he might be able to dismiss the final payment, but he will be hard pressed to convince the court that he is due a repayment on work that has been completed, invoiced and paid by him in the first place, unless there are some clauses in the contract that entitle him to full refund.

[anksta]

I doubt that you will get definitive answer from anyone here without full details of contract and work done. Even then I wouldn't rely on "the Internet" for legal advice.

Not sure why you are dismayed at the debt collection agency not being able to give you advice on something other than debt collection.

That being said, seems like your Client is a taking his legal advice from "the Internet" seeing how (at least according to him) his financial trouble started after being sued by ex-employee. And now is chancing counter-suit claims to scare you away.

I can somehow understand how he might be able to dismiss the final payment, but he will be hard pressed to convince the court that he is due a repayment on work that has been completed, invoiced and paid by him in the first place, unless there are some clauses in the contract that entitle him to full refund.

Yeah I'm not so much dismayed at them but just frustrated at the certainty they profess when signing you up to the specifics.

I agree that he is just ramping up the threat to scare me away but then I don't know enough to know whether or not he has a case against me, I cannot see how he would given we fulfilled the contract, haven't damaged his site in anyway and actually improved his business.

The ex-employee that sued him had been there something like 7 years and was a director, then one day while we working for him he calls me urgently demanding to know whether or not I was accessing this report, when I told him I was he calmed down and said he was worried this guy was stealing his stuff, so hardly all that clean cut and then this debt collections place said they found a CCJ against him.

[NotAllThere]

If you're being sued, one way to resist is to counter sue in the hope of muddying the waters. This sounds to me what he is trying.

[quackhandle]

Would never have agreed to half payment; full payment or court action.

OP, you might want to watch this.

qh

[anksta]

Would never have agreed to half payment; full payment or court action.

OP, you might want to watch this.

qh

Yeah fair enough but that's 20/20 hindsight, I should have just recorded the calls etc. too but oh well, lesson learned.

Am watching that video now, thanks.