Ben Rogers
If this firm is instructing you to do work for them, get payment in advance! In my capacity as a Mortgage Advisor, I was instructed by Kerry Haugh of Mills & Reeve Solicitors to provide a financial assessment letter for one of their clients in an upcoming Divorce case. At the time they emailed me, I was on holiday with only a few days left of my leave but they didn't really want to wait for my return and it was only because the colleague looking after my work whilst I was on leave couldn't deal with this request, they had to wait until I got back. As soon as I was back, I dropped everything else to deal with this urgent request and spent most of the day dealing with it to turn it around in the very tight timescales they had requested. Once I provided them with the letter they didn't even have the common decency to acknowledge receipt of the work I had done and ignored the invoice request I sent through. Furthermore, I am still without payment for the work I have carried out! I issued the invoice on the 18th September with an invoice due date of 25th September and they have still not paid and we are now on the 23rd October! They tried to fob me off with payment by saying they need their client to pay them first before they pay me (my invoice to them is £99, so hardly thousands) but this was not mentioned in their terms when they were all too pushy when initially requesting the letter was provided urgently. Unless cash flow of £99 is a problem to this firm then I do not see why I have to wait for their client, whom I was not instructed by and have had no dealings with should pay them first before they pay me for a service they have instructed me to provide to them.