Any business litigation attorneys here?

[Schmo]

Looking to have a basic phone call with an attorney who knows about business litigation, specifically failure to pay according to contract.

 

[Salmon River Solutions]

I don't know anyone, but gonna follow along...

Ken

 

[Schmo]

I don't know anyone, but gonna follow along...

Ken

Welcome! I’ve got a maintenance vendor who has decided not to follow our contract.

 

[Salmon River Solutions]

Welcome! I’ve got a maintenance vendor who has decided not to follow our contract.

Gotcha...

We've been pretty good as far as who we've dealt with. I think we've only ever had one dealer who never paid, and it was only one order around $3k.

Ken

 

[Schmo]

Gotcha...

We've been pretty good as far as who we've dealt with. I think we've only ever had one dealer who never paid, and it was only one order around $3k.

Ken

Yeah, same here. Been in business for 4 years in the home services/light commercial maintenance industry. Until now, only one vendor failing to pay a $300ish invoice.

 

[Macintosh]

Im not familiar with the terminology—does that mean you provide maintenence on a predetermined schedule (as opposed to on demand) and they pay you on a schedule?
Curious myself. I deal more with a/r and a/p but we frequently have a customer who we’ve provided goods to fail to pay us on time, and occasionally go bankrupt. Our contract basically says we can collect interest on late payments and we can send them to collections. But never dealt with litigation on it. Will follow.

 

[Nine Banger]

What kind of $ are we talking about?

Litigation will cost $6K at minimum and eat up lots of your time over the next few years. At the end you get a judgment and they probably won't pay it anyway.

A lein may be better. They won't pay until the business sells or you foreclose on property if the business actually has any assets tho, but it may make you feel better.

 

[Schmo]

Im not familiar with the terminology—does that mean you provide maintenence on a predetermined schedule (as opposed to on demand) and they pay you on a schedule?
Curious myself. I deal more with a/r and a/p but we frequently have a customer who we’ve provided goods to fail to pay us on time, and occasionally go bankrupt. Our contract basically says we can collect interest on late payments and we can send them to collections. But never dealt with litigation on it. Will follow.

No, this was a one time job consisting of three separate work orders, all performed at the same time. I onboarded as a contractor/subcontractor with the maintenance company, and signed the contract and payment terms documents. I was promised Net 30 terms for payment in full. Have loads of documentation, including an email thread of nearly 70 emails being exchanged. In addition to the signed Net 30 terms, two people on the email thread have stated that’s what they agreed to. We’re at 60-65 days with no payment. They aren’t disputing anything. Just not paying.

 

[Schmo]

What kind of $ are we talking about?

Litigation will cost $6K at minimum and eat up lots of your time over the next few years. At the end you get a judgment and they probably won't pay it anyway.

A lein may be better. They won't pay until the business sells or you foreclose on property if the business actually has any assets tho, but it may make you feel better.

$3,715.06. It’s not a lot of money in the world, but as an owner/operator, it’s a lot to me.

I know actual litigation would cost more than that amount. My current route is to file in small claims and see what goes there. Likely they wouldn’t even respond to the suit, and thus I’d win by default. However, then it’s on me to actually collect. Just wanted to talk to an attorney who knows these things and ask some basic questions so that I have a better understanding of things.

 

[Nine Banger]

No, this was a one time job consisting of three separate work orders, all performed at the same time. I onboarded as a contractor/subcontractor with the maintenance company, and signed the contract and payment terms documents. I was promised Net 30 terms for payment in full. Have loads of documentation, including an email thread of nearly 70 emails being exchanged. In addition to the signed Net 30 terms, two people on the email thread have stated that’s what they agreed to. We’re at 60-65 days with no payment. They aren’t disputing anything. Just not paying.

Check your lein rights.

Here I think it's 60 or 90 days.