Hello WHT World!

I have ( or had ) a client I was doing a design for that was going extreamly well for 2 months. The contract ended 1 week ago. Prior to that, I called, left messages, emailed them and even sent a certified letter to thier place of business to let them know that the contract was ending and I needed the content they were suppose to provide me a month ago to complete thier website ( which was nothing but adding 1 video and a few pictures ) that's it and thier website would have been launched and live.

BUT :eek: :mad: :kaioken:

I get a phone call 2 day's ago saying they want to cancel the contract and for us not to complete the web design we did for them. Here we have all this work that we did for this company. All this time and effort to create the website they wanted and WHAM! they pull this on us!!

What "legal" basis do I have? They still have a remainding ballance ( 50% ) that they didn't pay. I am within legal right to send a certified letter telling them the remainding ballance is due because they did not let me know this prior to the expiration date of the contract, am I right or wrong?

This is not right for people to do this! We designers, work hard and make every effort to create a perfect web design, and then you get this! This is like a spit in the face to me...

Thanks for your responces!
M. Williams

Does it have a clause that states what happens in this case? Talk to your lawyer with a copy of this contact in hand.

Actaully, My contracts do have this in them and I will be taking this contract to my lawyer if I can not get this issue resolved with them first.

This is very common. You are best to move on. Unless it is a large amount of money, you will waste all your time chasing it. As bear is saying, you will need an fairly tight contract and you will be spending some money on a lawyer.

A good way to avoid this common problem is to have the client provide everything 'before' you start your work.

Another way is to require 100% upfront. We don't start work for 'new customers' without full payment in advance. Some people say no but since most of our customers are referred, most just pay. Once we have successfully done work for a customer, we will allow them to run a bill next time.

Even though it is not your fault, my advice is to move on to customers who do pay. If you don't have other work to do, review current customer sites. Most times there are things you can do to update/enhance/improve existing sites (and you know that existing customers will pay).

For new customers, just send the full invoice and tell them that once it is paid, you can get going on the site. You will be pleasantly surprised at how many people will pay. As long as YOU are honest, this method works well.
(Another good thing about this method is that usually the client gets you the pics 'on time') ;-)

This is not a bad idea! I have thought about it in the past but I've always required 50% upfront before work is sytarted. But now I think, I am going to require at least 75% and have all the information BEFORE work is started.

Thanks for your help!