Contractor and unpaid bills

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Endrete

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www.severnviewstud.parks.officelive.com
Help required from legal bods please!! :-)

My OH is a agricultural contractor, does building works and makes and sells hay and haylage to local yards. He is currently having a problem with an unpaid bill.

The person who hasnt paid was a friend of a friend and had a problem with a landlord so my OH was hired to dismantle her yard (on rented land). He also provided hay, haylage and straw for her horses.

As she moved to a normal livery yard she had nowhere to store items such as gates/trailer etc and asked OH if he would store them at farm. He agreed to do this as a favour for a short period of time (not specified).

This person has made no effort to pay her bill for work done or for the hay etc. She offered him items in exchange e.g. gates etc to reduce the bill which he accepted at the time. He has now found out that these items have not actually been paid for by her and are under dispute. He doesnt want to get involved in this so will reliquish any claim to save time and arguments.

She has now advised that she has contacted the Police in order to recover the items stored on his yard - despite not contacting him at all for eight months!!

He is reluctant to let a couple of the bigger items go as he feels that she will have no reason to pay his bill at all and/or recover his money.

So where does he stand? Is he required to give her back all the items immediately or can he keep some and say that she can have them back as soon as she settles her bill?

Many thanks for reading!!!
 
She is probably bluffing about contacting the police, I think you will find you cannot hang onto goods unless previously arranged (there is a term for it, just can't think of it).
Send her a letter, recorded delivery, with a copy of the bill stating that full payment is required within 7 days or you will go the small claims route, and actually do it!
We used to run a large contracting business and extracting money could be a problem, i never wrote off a bill though. It used to really knark me that the people who didn't pay were often the ones with good lifestyles etc, the small farmer who was on the breadline would always pay on time.
Are you in the NFU? They have a legal helpline or CAB can be useful too. Good luck.
 
She is bluffing re the Police, get a Solicitor involved straight away.
What a nightmare, puts you off helping people doesn't it?
 
Echo the others, it's a civil matter, the Police won't be interested as no crime has been committed. I suspect he accepted her stuff because he knew it was security against what she owed him. I think the best advice would be to hang on to the stuff until you get paid. If she feels strongly enough, she can argue her case through the civil courts which will give you the opportunity to put your case and counterclaim and get an Order.

For the short term, I would write her a letter and send it recorded. Set out how much she owes and include an ongoing charge for storage. Tell her if she hasn't paid within 14 days, you will sell her stuff to cover your costs.
 
For the short term, I would write her a letter and send it recorded. Set out how much she owes and include an ongoing charge for storage. Tell her if she hasn't paid within 14 days, you will sell her stuff to cover your costs.[/QUOTE]

The original agreement was storage as a favour, you cannot back invoice her, but you could write to her saying as from 1/7/2011 the charge for storage will be £???/month.
BUT......if she hasn't paid her previous bill the chance of her paying for storage will be slim and she will want to come and remove her stuff which she could then claim you are holding against her will.
Its a tricky one, personally i would still go with the small claims court (i assume the bill is under £5K(Think the limit is around that))The threat may be enough for her to cough up, but you must follow it through.
As soon as she coughs up, get the stuff off your property!
 
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