General > General Technical Chat
Payment major issue with client
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DigitalDesigner:

How do I move it?

Benta:

--- Quote from: DigitalDesigner on January 10, 2022, 09:32:05 pm ---
How do I move it?

--- End quote ---

You don't. A moderator will probably do that tomorrow. I've reported the thread.
Cerebus:

--- Quote from: DigitalDesigner on January 10, 2022, 08:11:19 pm ---Any suggestions to get out of this situation and how to deal with bullies like that?

--- End quote ---

Don't take any informal legal advice  from anyone here from a country other than your own. What works in one place may be completely wrong in another; people tend to assume that what's normal where they are is normal elsewhere and that leads to assumptions that can be catastrophically wrong. One of my past German colleagues nearly got us into a lot of trouble by blithely assuming that commercial contracts in England worked like commercial contracts do in Germany (They don't, they are totally different, like totally.).

In England you'd probably be on fairly firm ground if you have all the correspondence you claim, but what your position is under Irish law I have no clue. Ask a proper lawyer, or at the very least a trusted, experienced, businessman with experience of the local law. See if there are any fixed fee consultation schemes in place that will let you buy some initial lawyer time and advice for a moderate fee.
Simon:
I'll move this to general chat. If you quoted against a specific spec you should stick to your guns and requote for the new specs and make sure this is all documented. When anyone first came to me the first thing I did after the first phone call would be to start writing a spec and send it to them, each email would be an update to the spec which would state what I plan to do ani state what information I require.

You do need to consult a lawyer, if you start to give in to changes then you are basically changing the spec you have quoted to.
ejeffrey:

--- Quote from: DigitalDesigner on January 10, 2022, 08:37:10 pm ---Thank you both,


--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on January 10, 2022, 08:25:03 pm ---Are we to understand that all of those modifications were asked and executed informally, without any addendum to the original contract? If so, unfortunately, your fault entirely. Never do that.

--- End quote ---

all changes were requested in writing by the client in endless emails and I repeatedly reminded him in writing they were not part of the original quote.

Does that change anything in my favor?

Thank you very much.

--- End quote ---

You definitely need a lawyer.  A couple hours of legal advice is far less expensive than the invoice at hand and should be enough to get you a fair idea of where you stand. Merely knowing that you are consulting a lawyer may make the client more responsive as well although  the client may have engineers and managers who think they are legal experts and that the law is definitely on their side even if it isn't so clear.

What constitutes a contract is complicated and jurisdiction specific.  Your written communications might constitute a contract that modifies the original or it might not.  In the US I think you would have a pretty good legal argument but it would depend on the specifics of the original contract and probably a lot of other things.  But only a lawyer you hire can evaluate the specifics of the situation and give you sound advice.

Simply reminding the client that this goes beyond the specification is a good start but good communication would also explain the effective difficulty of the changes and the hourly rate that you would bill at.  It's never good to send someone an EUR 18,000 bill they weren't expecting, even if they should have.
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