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Non payment of fees for professional services by a Bailiff
This is a long one....and I suppose quite ironic in that it is a bailiff who owes me money. Below is the situation which has caused me a great deal of stress as obviously this gentleman is well versed in debt and the law and has free legal advice. What I would like to know is:
I undertook some open source intelligence work for a registered bailiff who specialises in insolvency in November last year. The first "case" I handled went well and I was paid by BACS transfer in a timely fashion. He then asked for assistance on other cases but said it would be on a no-win no-fee basis for some of the cases to which I consented provided that there was billable work for me to earn a living. Most of our communication was done by phone, usually him ringing me (up to 5 times a day requesting assistance on various things) as he found it easier than email.
At the beginning of February I prepared a report for one of the cases which was going to court, he said it was a good job and that he would pay next week...I didn't hear from him. During the same conversation he said he had met an ex Interpol detective and was considering using him for some of the work as well. Towards the end of February having had no further communication I issued invoices for all the outstanding work, totalling over £7k. He responded to the emails saying in three cases he would pay next week, that for one he was only prepared to pay half the invoiced amount as I had upset the client ( he instructed me to send a report directly to the client instead of through him, so no checks were made by him...it's a complicated one) and that one had to be readjusted (lowered ) by£100. The adjusted invoice was done and re-issued the same day. No payments were made in February
In the middle of March I sent a registered letter regarding outstanding monies and mentioning late payment of commercial debt etc and requesting payment within the next 7 days and that my company had a policy of not supplying services to an organisation with arrears of over 60 days. I received an email acknowledgement the following day asking for a breakdown of all invoices, that the largest invoice (approx £2100) was no win no fee and instructions would be given as to when I could invoice and that two of the invoices were rejected. One of these was the one he had previously stated he would pay half of. I did go to his website to check his company address (he had asked me to bill him at his home address but had since split with his partner and moved out ) to find there was just a holding page with no company details.
He sent two cheques a week later for two of the invoices totalling approximately £800 from two different company bank accounts (as I said earlier he had previously made all payments by BACS) I received a letter from my bank saying the cheque for £500+ had been stopped by the issuer for reasons of theft so only £250 cleared. A week later I received another cheque for just over£1k and this cleared.
On the 1st April, I removed access to all the data and reports I had produced for him from a Cloud account.
Last week I got several notifications that he was trying to access the cloud data and received an email requesting access to some video footage that I had uploaded on the 3rd December 2015 as the case was going to court, included in this email was an email from the solicitors asking why they couldn't access the data. The footage had been paid for back in December though there is still over £1000 outstanding on that case. I then received a threatening sms message a couple of days later, so I replied to his earlier email, copying in the solicitors who he was working for with a link giving access to the footage and basically saying that access was only revoked when it became apparent he had dispensed with my services without full payment and that he had had more than enough time to download the data and that I found his sms threatening.
I am currently owed over £6000.
- is it worth pursuing - I might be going overseas to work and may not be able to be in the UK on specified dates
- as he dispensed with using my services I believe that I am no longer in a position to gain a "win" and therefore should be paid for work carried out in good faith on the largest invoice whichy includes costs for overseas travel
- Due to non-payment I obviously don't have a lot of money available and am worried that due to his resources I could get end up with nothing and a legal bill I can't afford
I undertook some open source intelligence work for a registered bailiff who specialises in insolvency in November last year. The first "case" I handled went well and I was paid by BACS transfer in a timely fashion. He then asked for assistance on other cases but said it would be on a no-win no-fee basis for some of the cases to which I consented provided that there was billable work for me to earn a living. Most of our communication was done by phone, usually him ringing me (up to 5 times a day requesting assistance on various things) as he found it easier than email.
At the beginning of February I prepared a report for one of the cases which was going to court, he said it was a good job and that he would pay next week...I didn't hear from him. During the same conversation he said he had met an ex Interpol detective and was considering using him for some of the work as well. Towards the end of February having had no further communication I issued invoices for all the outstanding work, totalling over £7k. He responded to the emails saying in three cases he would pay next week, that for one he was only prepared to pay half the invoiced amount as I had upset the client ( he instructed me to send a report directly to the client instead of through him, so no checks were made by him...it's a complicated one) and that one had to be readjusted (lowered ) by£100. The adjusted invoice was done and re-issued the same day. No payments were made in February
In the middle of March I sent a registered letter regarding outstanding monies and mentioning late payment of commercial debt etc and requesting payment within the next 7 days and that my company had a policy of not supplying services to an organisation with arrears of over 60 days. I received an email acknowledgement the following day asking for a breakdown of all invoices, that the largest invoice (approx £2100) was no win no fee and instructions would be given as to when I could invoice and that two of the invoices were rejected. One of these was the one he had previously stated he would pay half of. I did go to his website to check his company address (he had asked me to bill him at his home address but had since split with his partner and moved out ) to find there was just a holding page with no company details.
He sent two cheques a week later for two of the invoices totalling approximately £800 from two different company bank accounts (as I said earlier he had previously made all payments by BACS) I received a letter from my bank saying the cheque for £500+ had been stopped by the issuer for reasons of theft so only £250 cleared. A week later I received another cheque for just over£1k and this cleared.
On the 1st April, I removed access to all the data and reports I had produced for him from a Cloud account.
Last week I got several notifications that he was trying to access the cloud data and received an email requesting access to some video footage that I had uploaded on the 3rd December 2015 as the case was going to court, included in this email was an email from the solicitors asking why they couldn't access the data. The footage had been paid for back in December though there is still over £1000 outstanding on that case. I then received a threatening sms message a couple of days later, so I replied to his earlier email, copying in the solicitors who he was working for with a link giving access to the footage and basically saying that access was only revoked when it became apparent he had dispensed with my services without full payment and that he had had more than enough time to download the data and that I found his sms threatening.
I am currently owed over £6000.
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