The Underscore Archives

It doesn't sound like he has much of a case to be honest. A verbal
contract is a contract, period. I'm not a lawyer but I can't see
something like this being tricky to prove in court. He gave you a
deposit, he signed a brief, you've had meetings. There's no doubt he
hired you for those services.

The fact that he's just turned around and said he 'thinks' the final
product won't match the original brief, he wants the deposit back now
and is not willing to go any further or work on the problem with you
really takes responsibility off you. You haven't suddenly told him you
can't deliver or that you think he's changed the original brief and
therefore will keep the deposit and not continue. You've created a
prototype for him in good faith and tried to work with him.

Something like this would just be laughed out of court imo. You can't
waste a company's time by making conjecture about their ability to
finish a product half way through development. It's in someone's best
interest to spend the time working with the company they've hired to
refine the product rather than spending even more time and money by
taking them to court.

I would say that there's something very fishy going on. The client has
changed his mind and wants to back out for some reason he's not
letting on.

You have the stronger case in court because you've made every effort
to work with the client and I'm assuming you have a past record of
delivering your products as expected. If I were you I would take him
to court to recover all the costs you've incurred.

I'd get the lawyer to draft the letter to him informing him of your
intent to recover your costs. You'll also be able to gauge the
situation better from his response. If he's trying to pull a fast one
and back out the deal unethetically then he'll want to call it a day
at the 20% deposit and move on.


Good luck


Jeff


2008/4/30 Steve Kirtley <steve.kirtley at gmail.com>:
> Evening all,
>
>  I took a client on a few weeks ago who later accepted my quote to build his
>  website.
>
>  A significant chunk of the development time (around 70% of the overall cost)
>  was for ActionScripting which I don't do, so I arranged a freelancer to do
>  that piece of the work.
>
>  Now cut to a few weeks later - admittedly slightly behind the client's
>  unrealistic deadline - a first proof of concept of the flash app (functional
>  rather than designed) was sent to the client for first feedback. The client
>  failed to see the functionality was there, and threw toys out of pram
>  suggesting that the functionality does not match his brief (it does... and
>  he signed off on that brief). All attempts to reason with him/implement his
>  feedback/changes have failed.
>
>  Situation now is he's saying he doesn't want to proceed, has no faith that
>  end product will meet his needs etc etc.
>  I'm saying that cost to date will be charged. He's responding with 'no, I
>  want my deposit back' and see you in court if you think that's the case
>  style antics.
>
>  Now the crunch. Obviously my company has to pay the actionscripter we've
>  used down in Brighton - he's done his job, it does match the spec and it's
>  obvious he's put the hours in to it...
>
>  Now (shout fool now) I don't issue a formal contract, after legal advise
>  suggested that they rarely pay for themselves, but the client has (by email)
>  accepted the statement of work, signed off on the brief, and paid a 20%
>  deposit. Do I have any comeback, or is this something that realistically
>  will not stand up and cost more in fees to try and fight?
>
>  Any tips/suggestions/get over it statements welcomed...
>
>
>  Cheers,
>
>  Steve
>  --
>  underscore_ list info/archive -> http://www.under-score.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/underscore
>