New contract not signed by agent (yet)

[kingcook]

How about phoning the client and confirming from them that everything is fine to start on Monday morning. A two minute phone call tomorrow morning will save you all the hassle.

Good point! (blonde moment)

[SueEllen]

Good point! (blonde moment)

You should have contacted the client from the beginning when they started mucking you around with the dates.

Some clients have long procurement procedures where it has to go to various people to be signed off and if one of them is on holiday nothing happens until they come back in two weeks.

In one place I made sure the PM phoned the contractor who was suppose to be coming on board directly to tell him what was going on as I pointed agencies are hard to believe.

[psychocandy]

Hmm. Thinking about this if you sign a contract and then send it back the agent can, in effect (or think they can) hang on to this for as long as it suits them before signing it. This way even if the client puts things back a few weeks they can hold on to the contractor because you've signed it but they havent. In fact, I guess they could even then cancel if it all went wrong.

Hmmm. Not cool.

[SueEllen]

Hmm. Thinking about this if you sign a contract and then send it back the agent can, in effect (or think they can) hang on to this for as long as it suits them before signing it. This way even if the client puts things back a few weeks they can hold on to the contractor because you've signed it but they havent. In fact, I guess they could even then cancel if it all went wrong.

Hmmm. Not cool.

The contract should have MOO and substitution clauses so in theory if they keep you hanging on too long then you can say you will have to hire a sub-contractor to do the work.

Alternatively you can argue due to their lack of communication (specifically if you have asked them via email a couple of times when they posted the contract to avoid claims of lost in the post) that they have illustrated they have no intention of honouring the contract so you have pulled out. Obviously they will try and claim they didn't get your emails but if you show a history where they responded to previous ones then if they are stupid enough to take it further they won't easily be believed.

[kingcook]

The contract does indeed have MOO and RoS clauses. I also have many emails (complete with replies) from the agent saying they (the agency) are still waiting for the client-to-agency contract to be signed and returned to them.

I sent an email last night, no reply. Have tried phoning a few times today, voicemail kicks in.