The last argument of the developers

As you know, war is the last argument of kings. In this topic, I want to highlight the issue of pre-trial and court proceedings with those who do not want to pay for the developed product / service rendered by the client. It is clear that such "disassembly" - the last argument of the developer, it is better not to bring the situation to this, but there are different cases in life, especially in the current crisis time.




So, you made a wonderful website, and the client does not want to pay you hard-earned money. What to do? In order to develop a plan of action, you need to consider what we have. Let's start in order.
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1. Contract.

If there is no contract, then legally you can’t get money from a client who went into denial, you probably don’t succeed at all. It remains only to put pressure on his conscience, which, unfortunately, is completely atrophied for some. Therefore, we write the developer's security rule " There is no signed contract - there is no start of work ". If a client says something like - “guys, let's start working, time is tight, then we podhnemny contract”, we should be wary, often it is a bad sign, saying that this client will bring problems later. In general, we will no longer focus on this, working without a signed contract is the way to potential problems, this is an elementary truth.

2. How good is your contract.

Competently drawn up contract should provide for situations when the client, in order to delay the payment, begins to “wonder”: not to answer phone calls, not to provide information for filling the site, not to give approval to sketches or beta versions, etc. In order to remain a bona fide party in such unpleasant cases, clauses should be included in the contract that limit the time for performing such actions, for example, something like this “The customer is obliged to sign an act of acceptance of the work within 3 working days after its receipt or to furnish the Contractor reasonable objections in writing. In case of non-receipt of such objections, the work is considered accepted. ” It is also highly recommended to break the contract payment into parts so that you do not risk the entire amount of the contract, but only a part.

3. Write letters.

Suppose your contract is good, there are reservations mentioned above. What to do when the "miracles" began and your client began to "disappear." To begin with, you should write an official letter of approximately the following content:
Director of LLC “RiK”, Ivanov I.I.
Dear Ivan Ivanovich,

NN / NN / NNNN Our company has entered into an agreement with you to develop a website ...
NN / NN / NNNN we fulfilled our obligations under the contract, which was informed by the responsible employee of RiK Petrov VV, to whom the acceptance certificate of work was handed over. However, until today, we have not received an act signed on your part, nor a payment in accordance with p. NNN contract, no objections to the fact of non-performance of work. Convincingly ask ... (pay us money) ...

We send the letter to the customer with a return receipt.
Perhaps this will be enough for the client to check it out and decide to pay, if not - go to step 4

4. We have a claim to you.

If the letter did not help, you should make a complaint. To do this, if you do not have a lawyer in the state (as most likely it is, otherwise this article would be of little interest to you), you should hire a lawyer. The claim summarizes all of our requirements and is the last attempt to sensitize the defaulter before going to court. Also sent by registered mail with return receipt.
Again, in some cases, after receiving claims, a bad client understands the seriousness of your intentions and prefers to pay.

5. The court goes, the statement of claim.

So, the case is hard, the client does not want to pay at all. If you decide to go to the end - the claim is written to the economic (arbitration court), usually at the location of the defendant (legal address). The application, which is also worth entrusting to a lawyer, is accompanied by documents confirming that you have completed the work (for example, site sketches, screenshots, intermediate acts signed by the client) and tried peacefully, pretrial, to solve the problem of receiving money. A lawsuit with applications is sent to the court, somewhere in a month a hearing is scheduled, at which your lawyer will prove that you are white and fluffy, and the client is a malicious defaulter. If your position is confident and the defaulter is liquid, then the respondent will most likely simply ignore the hearing and the court will probably decide in your favor.

PS My firm opinion: courts and lawyers are an extremely means, it is better to do without them, but the work must be carried out in such a way that, if necessary, you can resort to this last resort.

Update: moved to the blog "Business Studio", as the most appropriate topics