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Anyone got any advice on what to do please? I'm owed nearly £400 for various work for a customer. The work included replacing light fittings and accessories, all of which I supplied. I also, soon after doing this work, did two EICRs for her. To cut a long story short she was very unhappy that I'd failed them both, despite being for very good reason. Unknown to me she got another electrician to do the inspections a few days later who apparently passed them both, which I find hard to believe. When I sent the invoice she replied and said she'd give me £60 for my time and that was being generous. I pointed out the price is for all the work I did before the inspection and that I was being generous for not charging for those. She seemed ok with that but two months have since passed and not had any response to two reminders, so now working out what to do next.
Send the Boys around? joke
 
Hi, when I had this situation, I researched what to do and I found this on a UK governmet web site :
Here is an extract. It is for companies only I think but not sure. Mine was company to company.

Interest on late commercial payments​

The interest you can charge if another business is late paying for goods or a service is ‘statutory interest’ - this is 8% plus the Bank of England base rate for business to business transactions. You cannot claim statutory interest if there’s a different rate of interest in a contract.
And here is an example of how to work it out:
If your business were owed £1,000 and the Bank of England base rate were 0.5%:
  • the annual statutory interest on this would be £85 (1,000 x 0.085 = £85)
  • divide £85 by 365 to get the daily interest: 23p a day (85 / 365 = 0.23)
  • after 50 days this would be £11.50 (50 x 0.23 = 11.50)
Send a new invoice if you decide to add interest to the money you’re owed.
I mailed the accounts dept. of the company and told them a new invoice would be written after 30 days using these calculations and this worked for me. Did not have to action the threat.
Hope this helps
JohnC
 
Hi, when I had this situation, I researched what to do and I found this on a UK governmet web site :
Here is an extract. It is for companies only I think but not sure. Mine was company to company.

Interest on late commercial payments​

The interest you can charge if another business is late paying for goods or a service is ‘statutory interest’ - this is 8% plus the Bank of England base rate for business to business transactions. You cannot claim statutory interest if there’s a different rate of interest in a contract.
And here is an example of how to work it out:
If your business were owed £1,000 and the Bank of England base rate were 0.5%:
  • the annual statutory interest on this would be £85 (1,000 x 0.085 = £85)
  • divide £85 by 365 to get the daily interest: 23p a day (85 / 365 = 0.23)
  • after 50 days this would be £11.50 (50 x 0.23 = 11.50)
Send a new invoice if you decide to add interest to the money you’re owed.
I mailed the accounts dept. of the company and told them a new invoice would be written after 30 days using these calculations and this worked for me. Did not have to action the threat.
Hope this helps
JohnC
It applies to any business to business transaction. You could include something in the contract to cover late payments for a business to consumer scenario though.

Don't forget under Late Payment of Commercial Debts legislation you can charge statutory compensation on top of the interest also.
 
Deadline been and gone, no payment so made a claim. Not sure what will happen but she's seems that crazy it wouldn't surprise me if she put in a counter claim. I know I've done nothing wrong and rightfully owed that money but can't help stressing about it.
I've had to make a claim a couple of times. Hope it all works out for you.
 
8 out of 10 will just pay it or ignore it and you win by default
 
Anyone got any advice on what to do please? I'm owed nearly £400 for various work for a customer. The work included replacing light fittings and accessories, all of which I supplied. I also, soon after doing this work, did two EICRs for her. To cut a long story short she was very unhappy that I'd failed them both, despite being for very good reason. Unknown to me she got another electrician to do the inspections a few days later who apparently passed them both, which I find hard to believe. When I sent the invoice she replied and said she'd give me £60 for my time and that was being generous. I pointed out the price is for all the work I did before the inspection and that I was being generous for not charging for those. She seemed ok with that but two months have since passed and not had any response to two reminders, so now working out what to do next.
Small claims court, charging for everything plus interest, plus lost time to sue, plus advice taken to sue, plus damages to reputation, plus mental and emotional stress.

You have to take these people on otherwise they will just keep trying to drag our industry down to the pits.

Once a court summons lands on her mat she'll pay up. Always take photos and have evidence of work too.
 
Update:

She's paid the full original amount this morning, 2 days before the 2 weeks from date of being served would be up and I could apply for judgement. Cutting it fine, I was honestly expecting her to ignore it. Only thing is I've lost 50 quid by making the claim, don't know where I stand on that but I won't lose too much sleep over it.
 
Update:

She's paid the full original amount this morning, 2 days before the 2 weeks from date of being served would be up and I could apply for judgement. Cutting it fine, I was honestly expecting her to ignore it. Only thing is I've lost 50 quid by making the claim, don't know where I stand on that but I won't lose too much sleep over it.
Bill her for the £50 for the claim. People like you are too nice and it lets them get away with it. Do you think a proper company would swallow the court fee and pay it themselves?

Make her pay for your time, effort, energy and costs.
 
Unknown to me she got another electrician to do the inspections a few days later who apparently passed them both, which I find hard to believe.
Interestingly, had she been daft enough to go to court with it, she would have had to produce those EICRs as evidence of your "wrongdoing" (I'm assuming she was taking the line of "your EICRs were rubbish and therefore you're incompetent"). At which point, if you were certain of your ground, you'd be able to report the other electrician - to their competent person scheme if they were a member.

Even solicitors will try it on. Maaany years ago (with some friends) I had a computer business, and we used the services of a local solicitor while setting up the business. We never noticed that they hadn't billed us for their time. Roll forward a few years, the original business had failed (lets say, more enthusiasm than business acumen ?), and a couple of us had set up a different one. Then we got a demand from the solicitor for some money - a partner was retiring and they realised we'd not been billed, so they billed us and demanded payment. They soon shut up when I pointed out that we had engaged them as officers of the first company company (which had by now been wound up) and our current company was not liable for the debt - and threatened to report them to their governing body if they persisted. They would have known before they even asked for it that they were in the wrong.

PS - I've also used the statutory interest thing in the past, you'd be amazed at the reasons/excuses some companies can come up with as to why it "doesn't apply to them".
 
Interestingly, had she been daft enough to go to court with it, she would have had to produce those EICRs as evidence of your "wrongdoing" (I'm assuming she was taking the line of "your EICRs were rubbish and therefore you're incompetent"). At which point, if you were certain of your ground, you'd be able to report the other electrician - to their competent person scheme if they were a member.

Even solicitors will try it on. Maaany years ago (with some friends) I had a computer business, and we used the services of a local solicitor while setting up the business. We never noticed that they hadn't billed us for their time. Roll forward a few years, the original business had failed (lets say, more enthusiasm than business acumen ?), and a couple of us had set up a different one. Then we got a demand from the solicitor for some money - a partner was retiring and they realised we'd not been billed, so they billed us and demanded payment. They soon shut up when I pointed out that we had engaged them as officers of the first company company (which had by now been wound up) and our current company was not liable for the debt - and threatened to report them to their governing body if they persisted. They would have known before they even asked for it that they were in the wrong.

PS - I've also used the statutory interest thing in the past, you'd be amazed at the reasons/excuses some companies can come up with as to why it "doesn't apply to them".
I've had them try to omit the statutory interest and compensation from payment before. Seemingly the meaning of "statutory" is beyond some...
 
If it's possible for me to get it off her then I'll certainly try, she had ample opportunity to pay before even after warning I'd take legal action, I agree I shouldn't be out of pocket to get what I'm owed. Just not sure what the next step is, it's not very clear on the MCOL site. I don't even know if the letter sent to her included the court fee.
 
I think I would be writing to her to advise that the payment is accepted without predjudice to the impending legal action due to the outstanding costs and interest accrued
 
Had something like this years ago and I was advised that when it would still go to court and the court would award the fees only.

On a side note- if you get a CCJ / Decree wait 31 days before you hassle them and it will stay on the credit file

If a person settles a CCJ / decree within 30 days then it is not marked on the credit agencies, better to wait a few weeks to hammer a point home
 

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