Verbal Agreemant Broken

[McKibben1]

I was asked to measure a shop area for flooring as i had done work in the owners house. I am a indepentant fitter. I called and measured the areas involved and the shop i would do work for gave them a price over the phone for materials and what my fitting would be.They did not purchase the materials from that shop due to a project manager being able to buy product direct but contacted me and told me they wanted me to fit the floorings. Arrangements were made for me to call again at the shop to do the work. I called on 2 different occasions but the place was not ready for flooring to be laid and i left some of the bags of levelling screed on site. The project manager contacted me and a new date was booked to start the job. I kept 6 days clear of work to be able to do this and turned down other work to leave a clear run for this job. I phoned the owner of the shop the day before i was to start to be told that the work was started the week before by someone else and they were there fitting it all already. No one contacted me to inform me of this and if i hadnt have phoned the day before i would have arrived at the job to find it had been done by someone else. I am out a weeks work of good money and what makes it worse is i put other work of to do this job. Have they broke a verbal agreement? and can i claim anything back due to loss of earnings. Thankyou.

[charitynjw]

Re: Verbal Agreemant Broken

Hi McKibben1,

From the info you have given, yes, they have breached a valid contract, so you would be entitled to sue on that breach.
The big problem, of course, is adequate proof.
A Sam Goldwyn quote springs to mind!

[McKibben1]

Re: Verbal Agreemant Broken

Thanks for your reply. What type of proof would help me with this? I have been on site to measure,telephone calls from them and left materials on site ready for the job to be started. I have no written contract from them but have witnesses who were with me on the days i called to try and start the work.
What is the best way to handle this and sort this out with them?
Thanks again

[Lord_Alcohol]

Re: Verbal Agreemant Broken

Would the way to tackle this be;

1. Work out your losses (ie, the cost derived from loss of work, the materials you bought and so on).
2. Write a letter to the project manager asking for your losses to be repaid. Give him 14 days to sort it out.
3. If nothing after 14 days, send him a letter advising that you will be taking this to court after a further 14 days.
4. If nothing after those 14 days (28 in total), serve a claim via MCOL

There is definately a contract, even though verbal.

If you eventually file a claim you may have to rely on anything your witnesses can say so it would be prudent to get them to write this down now (eg, that they witnessed the agreement to do the work between you two).

It should be fairly simple and you should be compensated, but note only your actual losses are reclaimable - not any penalties you might want to add!


HTH
LA

[CleverClogs]

Re: Verbal Agreemant Broken

Tell them you'll get a court order to dig up the floor to recover your levelling screed.

[McKibben1]

Re: Verbal Agreemant Broken

Thanks for all your help guys i just hope i do this right as i am out at least £1300. You mentioned MCOL what is that??
Would i do the letter myself or get a solicitor to do it? as i am not very good at wording a letter the write way.:tinysmile_aha_t:
Thanks again all.

[charitynjw]

Re: Verbal Agreemant Broken

https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/web/mcol/welcome

[Guest]

Re: Verbal Agreemant Broken

Hi
Yes Charity, would that be the one about a verbal contract not being worth the paper it is printed on.

Verbal contracts are notoriously difficult to prove, I would seek proper legal advice before i spent any money on legal claims. Only my opinion.
Peter