Unpaid work....................

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johniosaif

johniosaif

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Thankfully in 25 yrs plus I have only been knocked for a few hundred here and there, not nice but survivable, had a few contractors deducting 20/% but never paying the tax and I get taxed on it again... Anyone else suffer this type of thing..
 
I've had numerous builders go bang on me in the last 18 months ranging from 2k to 8k. Had one go the start of this month who owed me 3k. I'm sure my losses are small fry compared to some of the lads on here
 
barryed said:
I've had numerous builders go bang on me in the last 18 months ranging from 2k to 8k. Had one go the start of this month who owed me 3k. I'm sure my losses are small fry compared to some of the lads on here
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That is bad enough Barry..
 
barryed said:
I've had numerous builders go bang on me in the last 18 months ranging from 2k to 8k. Had one go the start of this month who owed me 3k. I'm sure my losses are small fry compared to some of the lads on here
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you must be more carefull with the type of clients that you work for. payment every week,or they will piss up your back. building comps. know how easy it is to go bankrupt, just answer a few questions over the phone and all debts are wiped out, no one owes me a penny i always collect.
 
Upto 18 months ago I've never had any issues. Lessons have hopefully been learned along the way
 
once got took for 1,000 quid, that was bad enough and had a few owing me a few hundred, but as the years go by you get more experienced/realistic/cynical, now when i go to price a job i can sense if they are okay nowadays have no bad payers, once did a job and unfourtanetly right at the end of the job customers mother died, so for 6 weeks i did nothing left her alone as her mam had just died, at the end of week 7 i sent her a bill 450.00 quid, week 8 she phoned me up and said she had no money, i was not a happy bunny, so for 11 months we came to an agreement , i drove up to her house and got 40.00 off her every month until it was paid, not ideal situation but at least i got it. but as barreyed says lessons learned
 
Sometimes I read these threads on here and shake my head in disbelief at the way people go about running a bussiness. When I get up in the morning and go to work its with the sole intention of earning money, theres no way I would let someone not pay me what im owed.
If you do happen to be one of these people that cant deal with confrontation, then theres plenty of companys out there that will take on the debt and get you your money plus interest!
 
i do know of building firms that deliberately knock a sub contractor or two on a job to put the job back into profit again.
 
Wezly said:
Sometimes I read these threads on here and shake my head in disbelief at the way people go about running a bussiness. When I get up in the morning and go to work its with the sole intention of earning money, theres no way I would let someone not pay me what im owed.
If you do happen to be one of these people that cant deal with confrontation, then theres plenty of companys out there that will take on the debt and get you your money plus interest!
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Its not that easy if a company goes under, you are a long way down the list as a creditor, if you want to take someone to court it may cost you more in time and money than the debt.Its not about avoiding confrontation.I know guys who have held people upside down out of a window to get paid, people who go to the house and smash it up, people who grab the person who owes and issues real threats, too much hassle for me as I would end up in nick.
 
it amazes me how little back ground checks people do with businesses particular with ltd company,
its obviously not a fool proof way of a guarantee that your going to get paid, but a simple search at companies house will give you an indication of how solvent a business is or if the individual/company has ccj's or other issues against them, or been banned from being a company director in the past.
ive only been knocked twice since i started out first time was only about a grand, the second time was 13 grand, we were getting 13 grand payments on a 36 grand project, the first payments came with out issues, the last dragged on and on, it turns out the outfit went bust and in the end i got nothing in the list of creditors, the only people who got anything was hmrc as is always the case in these things they get first dibs on what evers left when the company is liquidated.people on here moan about stress, if your owed that and then you dont get it, thats real stress.
 
This is one of the reasons I got out of being a plastering subcontractor. Most of my builders where small builders and about 10 of them. 2 paid on completion and the others would not pay a penny until they had been paid.

So, I was to supply labour at then £2-6 a day profit, pay the labour on completion or Friday whichever came first, take full responsibility for their work and supply materials at cost for 3 of them the others where labour only. The cheek of it! Get some plasterer to finance the job for them at virtual cost!

I had a builder in 84-5 give me a job when the miners where on strike and so was the local Council. A grant job. He said there was 2 months labour only work but as it was all grant, until the Council pays there will be no money. well, there was no work anywhere so I took it on. In the 7 weeks it took me 4 days work came in elsewhere and on the 8th week he went bust!

I took on a solicitor and took him to court for money owed and legal costs. I won the ccj and as he was Ltd I then was told he had nothing in assets so I won my day in court, did the job for nothing and paid at the time £350 (about 8 days work) in legal costs. The solicitor knew he had nothing from the start so took me for a mug as well.

During the 80,s I got took about twice a year for in todays money from several hundred to a grand. Take that off working at cost and you are at a loss.

It just wasn,t business so I jacked it in and went domestic rendering instead. Domestic usually pays ok, on time but it is seasonal and dependent on the weather. Would still rather do domestic than go back to the contracting. Unless there is a profit, a reward over risks then I am out of it.

As Owls says, with the help of the internet you can now suss out Ltd Co,s. The young Co,s and the poor record ones leave alone or at least be labour only.

Towards the end of my contracting days builders would say "how much" and I would say before I give you a price how quick do you pay as I don,t give any credit. They all took nark and told me to take a hike with that attitude! Well that was a deal in my mind. Find some other idiot I thought.

At the time I thought it only happened to me but it is still happening. Ask yourself this? You take on these builders jobs and give them credit although you might not intend to. Have you ever took on a subby plasterer, had him do the job and then simply say "I will pay you when they pay me" and got away with it? Don,t think so, so why should the builders get away with it. Sod em!
 
as you say owls thats real stress, thats a huge ammount of money to take a hit like that, was there no way you could have stopped once you seen they were having trouble making the payments, to be honest that ammount of money would have finished me i would have just packed it all in, but good for you its obviously hit you hard but you are still going, as has been mentioned this all comes with experience but i would say you are much more cautious now,keep going lad.
 
Years ago I was supervisor for a company that was well known for going bust and knocking the subs. They changed their name and offices every time. Never came on site left everything to me. I packed it in after six months I couldn't handle the look on the faces of decent hard working guys when they had not had any wages for two weeks and I had to promise them they would get paid the following week as long as the came in. A promise I new I couldn't keep !
 
Capital spread said:
Years ago I was supervisor for a company that was well known for going bust and knocking the subs. They changed their name and offices every time. Never came on site left everything to me. I packed it in after six months I couldn't handle the look on the faces of decent hard working guys when they had not had any wages for two weeks and I had to promise them they would get paid the following week as long as the came in. A promise I new I couldn't keep !
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these people deserve getting hurt...............
 
Capital spread said:
Years ago I was supervisor for a company that was well known for going bust and knocking the subs. They changed their name and offices every time. Never came on site left everything to me. I packed it in after six months I couldn't handle the look on the faces of decent hard working guys when they had not had any wages for two weeks and I had to promise them they would get paid the following week as long as the came in. A promise I new I couldn't keep !
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Wernt hughes plastering was it
 
Capital spread said:
Years ago I was supervisor for a company that was well known for going bust and knocking the subs. They changed their name and offices every time. Never came on site left everything to me. I packed it in after six months I couldn't handle the look on the faces of decent hard working guys when they had not had any wages for two weeks and I had to promise them they would get paid the following week as long as the came in. A promise I new I couldn't keep !
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Theres a couple of companies in Sheffield that are good at doing that. One of them offered me work earlier this year but I declined. They did find someone and on completion went bust again. Lucky escape.
 
had 2 this last week company shaved £700 off a bill coz they hadnt budgeted enough for the plastering and another arse-wipe hadnt payed last payment for 5 mounthes just took £1000 off it and thre isnt much you can do and they know it .
 
steve1903 said:
had 2 this last week company shaved £700 off a bill coz they hadnt budgeted enough for the plastering and another arse-wipe hadnt payed last payment for 5 mounthes just took £1000 off it and thre isnt much you can do and they know it .
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Can you explain this a bit more or is it that they simply reduced your invoice by that amount?
 
Rigsby said:
Theres a couple of companies in Sheffield that are good at doing that. One of them offered me work earlier this year but I declined. They did find someone and on completion went bust again. Lucky escape.
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A few Irish companies were at this in Ireland, they under price jobs then knock the subbies and suppliers while the fold the company.ALL LEGALLY done..
 
Gibbo said:
He's called gavea construction now
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ha ha. he was in our local paper,
they had him on trial at ipswich crown court. for being a company director while he was a person banned from running a company. he said that he was not a company director but a shadow director ,who had paid himself more wages then the chancellor of the exchequer, at an investigation into another bankruptcy. i do not know how the trial ended.
i could fill this page with stories about his and his brothers firms. DO NOT GO NEAR ANY COMPANY THAT HE IS INVOLVED WITH.
 
steve1903 said:
had 2 this last week company shaved £700 off a bill coz they hadnt budgeted enough for the plastering and another arse-wipe hadnt payed last payment for 5 mounthes just took £1000 off it and thre isnt much you can do and they know it .
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you can not accept that ! you are not on some profit and loss scheme. get yourself around to there office and demand full payment. they must think you are a easy touch!
 
johniosaif said:
Can you explain this a bit more or is it that they simply reduced your invoice by that amount?
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our invoice was worked on a measure like other jobs donr for this company and coz there man ****** it up we got stung £700 but have bean told 2 add a little on in the next few jobs (hope there is more jobs eh). as for the £1000taken off our final invoice on another job like i said he took 5 monthes to pay up andi can shout stamp my feat anything still tough as iv found out halfway through the job the guys got a reputation im not the first wont be the last.
 
steve1903 said:
our invoice was worked on a measure like other jobs donr for this company and coz there man ****** it up we got stung £700 but have bean told 2 add a little on in the next few jobs (hope there is more jobs eh). as for the £1000taken off our final invoice on another job like i said he took 5 monthes to pay up andi can shout stamp my feat anything still tough as iv found out halfway through the job the guys got a reputation im not the first wont be the last.
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Thats what I found in my plastering days. At first you do the obvious and don.t stand for it. Lose your temper, stamp your feet and get aggressive. After all that and they simply tell you the money isn,t there and they still win then you feel worse for failing than before you tried to sort it out.

I also think it is down to if your face fits and personality. I was always on the pay last if at all list as there was other subby's on the job who always got paid no problem. Makes you wonder?

Anyway, twice a year I got hit and got used to it. Simple. Best thing I did giving up contract work, let some other victim have it. As for the contractors well thats their loss. Sod em!
 
steve1903 said:
our invoice was worked on a measure like other jobs donr for this company and coz there man ****** it up we got stung £700 but have bean told 2 add a little on in the next few jobs (hope there is more jobs eh). as for the £1000taken off our final invoice on another job like i said he took 5 monthes to pay up andi can shout stamp my feat anything still tough as iv found out halfway through the job the guys got a reputation im not the first wont be the last.
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you have got to get your act together!
 
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