Obligation to pay for work done?...

Hi all

Wondered if you could share your thoughts on the following situation: I recently undertook a small piece of work for a client - very small, in fact, at just £25. The client was fine with the material provided but were in turn passing it on to their client (they were the middleman) who in the end decided that they didn't want it after all.

As their client did not use it, my client refused to pay for the work. But since my relationship was with my client and not their client, do they not still have an obligation to pay for the work that was provided in good faith and was fit for purpose? For such a small sum I can't be bothered with the hassle of pursuing it, but nonetheless do you not think they should have paid up as their client changing their mind is surely not my concern?

Thanks

Tim

Re : Obligation to pay for work done?

Tim

If your contract was with your client, which of course it was, and they were not unhappy with the quality of the work then it does actually seem irrelevant what their client in turn thought of it as your terms of delivery were with your client and not your clients client (confused yet? )

Interesting question, as you say not worth worrying about for such a small sum, but a murky area all the same...

Chris

Re : Obligation to pay for work done?

Chris

Thanks for your thoughts on this... I guess in any business where you tend to get paid after delivery rather than before there is a risk of non-payment for a variety of reasons.

Must be nice to be in a profession where you get paid before the work is done

Tim

Re : Obligation to pay for work done?

This sounds very annoying Tim, whilst you can write off this small sum the principle that people should honour their orders is still there!

Lianne

Re : Obligation to pay for work done?

Lianne - agreed, unfortunately ethics in business seems to be quite a rare commodity with some people these days!

Tim

Re : Obligation to pay for work done?

In the wider sense a big concern many smaller companies have is marshalling the resources to chase up on difficult payers - especially if they refuse to respond to standard methods such as follow-up emails and then phone calls.

A simple legal letter can help, but if that fails things can get time consuming and difficult.

Chris

Re : Obligation to pay for work done?

You firstly have to answer the question of if the company you were dealing with were acting as agents for the ultimate client or not.

If they were agents you could pursue either party for the monies. If they werent then you must pursue the company you were dealing with.

Ultimately you have to look at the contract you got them to sign and the terms in it. Your contract should have been water tight enough to cover eventualities like this.

Re : Obligation to pay for work done?

Thanks for that - for large chunks of work there would definitely be a contract in place. The thing is for something that is a ten minute change for £25 it is not viable to spend the time drawing up a carefully worded contract for and the client would see it as overkill for a small thing to sign it...

Tim