The Pet Vet dispute, part three: the cost of chasing payment

When getting paid becomes another job — and the legal bill starts eating into the money you are trying to recover.

There comes a point in a payment dispute when you realise you are doing two jobs. The first was supplying and fitting the floor. The second is assembling the paperwork, chasing answers and working out how much more money you can justify spending to recover the balance you believe is due.

The second job produces no new floor, serves no new customer and brings no new revenue into the business. It takes time away from all three.

That is where we are with The Pet Vet and its Feltham project.

Our final account was £49,764.70 including VAT. Against that account, payments totalling £42,537.94 are recorded, leaving the £7,226.76 we are pursuing. The Pet Vet disputes charges concerning additional vinyl, extra labour and screed quantities. We disagree with its deductions. This is an unresolved commercial dispute; the amount we claim has not been determined by a court.

We want the disagreement addressed properly, with evidence, calculations and a clear explanation of the contractual position.

On 22 September, Terry Pearson wrote that he would provide a substantive response to our final account “in the next seven to ten days”.

On 2 October, ten calendar days later, our 5pm check of the Accounts and general company mailboxes found no subsequent substantive response. We sent a follow-up at 5:06pm UK time and later forwarded it to Mel Fuller. A further check that evening found no later substantive Pet Vet reply in either mailbox.

Terry had not specified a 5pm deadline. But 2 October has now passed, and as of the morning of 3 October we have still received no substantive response. The seven-to-ten-day period he set himself has elapsed.

In my view, that is unprofessional and unacceptable. If you commit to providing a substantive response within a timeframe of your own choosing, you should deliver it. If you cannot, the basic professional courtesy is to explain the delay and say when a response can realistically be expected. We should not have to keep chasing a commitment Terry chose to make. A disputed account does not excuse poor communication.

If a substantive response arrives, we will reflect it fairly in our next update.

Meanwhile, the time spent dealing with the account continues to accumulate.

We have brought together the quotation, purchase order, invoice, payment records, supplier documents, job records and email correspondence. We have prepared a chronology, an account reconciliation and an indexed evidence pack. That includes the customer’s objections and the points that need further checking. Any proper assessment must examine both sides.

Then comes the cost of having someone assess it.

One legal firm quoted us £1,200 including VAT for an initial package: reading the papers, preparing questions, drafting and sending a letter before action, and waiting for a response. Its breakdown was £800 for four hours of solicitor time, £150 for half an hour of barrister time, £50 administration and £200 VAT. Separate initial written legal advice would cost extra.

So this was a quote for professional work, not simply the price of putting a letter in the post. We understand that. Preparing our own evidence pack does not remove a lawyer’s responsibility to check it independently.

But look at the economics from our side.

£1,200 is roughly one-sixth of the entire £7,226.76 we are pursuing. That is the quoted initial outlay, before we know whether the letter will resolve anything or what a contested next stage might cost. There is no certainty that spending the money will produce payment.

For a small contractor, I consider that a very steep price at the first stage. We declined the proposal and have approached another firm for a clearly defined fixed quote, including advice on the merits and what happens if the first letter does not settle the matter.

The frustration is obvious. You have already committed labour and materials to a project. You then commit more time to reconstructing it for somebody else. Finally, you must consider spending a substantial part of the disputed balance just to begin pursuing it professionally.

Every hour spent doing that is an hour unavailable for estimating, managing installations or looking after paying customers.

This creates a hard commercial calculation. A contractor can believe strongly in its claim and still decide that pursuing it is too expensive. That possibility exists whatever the reason for the original disagreement. We cannot establish anyone’s motive from a withheld balance, but we can describe the pressure it creates for the business trying to recover it.

We are now gearing up to pursue this claim, and we are prepared to spend money on doing so. Rejecting one legal quote does not mean we are backing down. It means we want that money spent effectively. We intend to pursue a proper resolution and recover whatever we can establish is due, using the appropriate legal process if necessary.

In my view, leaving a small contractor chasing both a disputed balance and a promised explanation is a disgraceful way to conduct business. No company should regard that as an acceptable way to treat its suppliers. We are not prepared to let the matter drop because pursuing it costs time and money. We want accountability, and we are prepared to put our evidence before a court if that is what it takes.

We also intend to keep documenting our experience accurately.

I have an interview arranged for next week, the week beginning 5 October, with a well-known press publication. I will leave the publication to announce its own plans. I intend to discuss our experience and make the relevant correspondence available for independent scrutiny. An interview is an opportunity to explain the story; it is not a promise of coverage or an endorsement of our position.

I have also discussed our experience privately with senior contacts in the veterinary industry. Those conversations will remain confidential. Our published account rests on our own dealings and the documents we can stand behind.

The Pet Vet is entitled to explain and support its deductions. We are entitled to challenge them. A substantive response would allow the issues to be narrowed and the evidence tested. We remain willing to consider that response fairly and correct any factual error in our account.

Our objective is straightforward: a properly resolved account and payment of the sum established as due. The cost and effort involved will influence how we pursue it. They have not removed our determination to do so.