Bad Client - What are my options?

flanagain

I'm a UI designer and in July I did a week of work for a client on the understanding that he would pay me within 6 weeks of the invoice being sent. I normally take deposits but I had worked with him before through my previous boss so I thought I could trust him.

He was happy with the work and made assurances that he would pay me in full (via email). It's now february and I have only been paid €500 out of the €1500 invoice.

I initiated a small claims case against him but it's been nearly 2 months now and the case still says "case not initiated." I was told by someone else on another thread here that small claims is not suitable for this kind of claim so now I'm kinda left in the dark as to what to do.

I checked the guy's website today that I designed and he's torn down all of the work I did (apart from some logos and graphics) and replaced it all with some fairly slick looking code, so I know he's found money somewhere now.

What should I do? I've gone from feeling like "he's a decent guy in tough situation starting a business and he's trying his best to pay" to "he decided after the fact that he wasn't happy with the work and now he/s trying to fob me off." I'm determined not to let him away with this, even if it means having to pay a solicitor and losing money on the case.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Pat Mustard

With the more complicated revised District Court rules, I don't think that it's realistic to expect that you could do the debt collection work yourself.

You should go to a solicitor.

flanagain

The Mustard wrote: »

With the more complicated revised District Court rules, I don't think that it's realistic to expect that you could do the debt collection work yourself.

You should go to a solicitor.

Hi,

Thanks for your response.

Could you (if you have time) possibly explain why that is though?

On the CSOL website they give a list of examples of what small claims court deals with and what it doesn't deal with. See below.

Type of claims dealt with:
(a)...
(b) a claim for goods or services bought for business use from someone selling them in the course of a business (business claims)

Excluded from the small claims procedure are claims arising from:
(a)...
(b)...
(c) debts

I would have thought that a case like this would be closer to option (b) than option (c).

I've contacted some debt collection agencies as well but should the court not have at least just closed the case if it wasn't viable?

Again, thanks for your time.

MarkAnthony

But (b) doesn't help you, you're the seller not the buyer.

Pat Mustard

You argue that (b) applies:

(b) a claim for goods or services bought for business use from someone selling them in the course of a business (business claims)

However, you have not described a situation where you are unhappy with goods or services.

You are aware of the exclusion of debts from Small Claims Court jurisdiction:

(c) debts or liquidated damages.

That's all I'm going to say because the forum charter does not allow legal advice.

You need to go to a solicitor if you need legal advice. A solicitor can advise you if your claim is for a debt or if it is for goods and services sold to you, but that advice cannot be given to you here.

MarkAnthony

If you're running a business you really need to establish a relationship with a solicitor. These issue are going to happen frequently and you'll gain more knowledge the more it happens, but for now you may end up spending a grand to (probably not) recoup a grand. You'll get the learning experience from it though.

The local chamber's of commerce usually have a day where you can go along and get some free legal advice from solicitors touting for business. May be have a look at that, I remember being invited to intern at one last year.