Hi all
Thinking about the business side of things, most times the kind of people I work for are very nice - understanding, polite, sympathetic, friendly, don't hold you to a specific price for doing something it's hard to quantify an end of (such as a general tidy on a garden that's not been seen to in a while). This is often because they were often gardeners themselves before they felt the need to ask for professional help. But there is always the odd one who isn't nice, isn't understanding or is just plain rude. There are even the odd times when the client you've arranged to see isn't in. This rarely happens to be fair, but recently it happened to me and the client did not explain why he hadn't been in, certainly didn't apologise and didn't offer to pay me for the time I then didn't earn anything because he hadn't been there. I have sent him a text since saying that if that happens again I will expect him to pay me the full fee because I can't just find someone else in that moment to go to instead with no notice whatsoever. I also had a regular client who I like forget I was coming once and it was awkward to ask her for the fee I should have earned. In the end I accepted a compromise of half fee, but it was out of order really. I should have just fannied about in her front garden and charged her full fee with more impunity.
So would a text be legally binding do you think? I guess unless you have a contract it would be hard to enforce any kind of payment as he hasn't even acknowledged my text, although if he did do that to me again and he didn't pay i'd probably say that I wouldn't work for him again unless he did. That's the least he should expect. I've always had this cold vibe off him. He never offers me tea (except once when they had another workman there he offered me one rather begrudgingly and condescendingly) and it's a weird set up too because he clearly lives with his parents, so it's their garden, but the father doesn't want to engage with me on any level unless he really has to. I think this is related to Covid paranoia. I suspect the mother is not well as she is always inside in the house. Clearly they love their garden and have made huge efforts with hard landscaping, a pond, and interesting plants back in a day a fair while ago, but this one job has really made me think that perhaps I should issue terms and conditions to everyone, including the nice ones.
I've even had one person say to me when I'd got half my equipment in already that my gardening time wasn't to start till I'd hauled all my equipment through her house to start a job in the garden (perils of working hourly) and once in the early days got caught out giving someone a quote which led them to expect me to return to finish a job essentially for free because it went beyond the hours I thought it would take. They didn't pay me till I returned. I now always view the time I pull up or ring the bell as my start time and I never quote, I make clear my price is always an estimate.
Assuming you don't necessarily have all contract work, do you at least have and would you recommend issuing terms and conditions to all clients even though some clearly don't need them because they're too nice? What are the main drivers for doing this in your view? And if you get a client to sign this is it a legally binding way to ensure you get paid?
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I wouldn't automatically give all customers T&C's as they work both ways and I might decide I don't wish to continue providing a service for any number of reasons .
Not always the customers fault it might be the garden does not fit in after all or it could be the customers demands are too rigid and not prepared to accept a flexible arrangement which would fit in perfectly .
On the other hand initially there can be a honeymoon period where the customer expresses their gratitude and everything appears to be going well but they miss a payment and you will wish you had issued T&C's to make your terms clear .
It is difficult when you sense a new customer is full of integrity ,is flexible ,pays on time and provides refreshments but it's not unreasonable or offensive to state your payment terms on your first invoice .
There will be T&C templates to download on here which are perhaps more detailed and applicable to specific customers but maybe not so for every customer .
A lot of questions raised there.
From our point of view, after ten years of trading - everyone, without exception gets a copy of the two page terms and conditions and a copy of the quote to sign and return by email or post and a copy of the quote to keep.
Keeps it absolutely crystal clear how much is owed, when and why.
We don't charge hourly as its (in my opinon), not a profitable way to run a business, its fine saying that your time on a job doesn't start till you arrive at the destination but then the travel and fuel costs are being taken by yourself, not the client.
With diesel at nearly £10 a gallon again, its simply uneconomic to run this way.
We provide a detailed, fixed price, eg if a client wants maintenance gardening, we will work out how many visits per year, estimate the travel time and fuel cost to go to and do the job on that many occasions, estimate the waste costs, work out the staff ways and overheads, add a profit margin, divide it by 12 and give them a cost per year. Rolling accounts are kept throught the year and should they terminate early from the 12 month period, they may owe us extra to cover the time already spent or we may owe them if larger tasks have not yet been completed.
As regards a job taking longer than you thought if you quoted it - customer was perfectly within their rights to ask you to finish the task without further payment - from a contractors point of view, yes its not ideal but in law, you provided a price to do a task, they agreed, if the task is not complete, they have the right to withhold payment till it is.
Generally speaking, in legal terms, a court will expect to see a signed copy of a quote, complete with a line that by sigining the quote they have read and accept your terms and conditions of trading - or a email from them, dated and explicitly stating the same. Having had to 'go legal' on a few late/ non payers, nothing else is considered sufficent evidence.
Angela, there is a lot raised here and some other contributors have made valid points.
As Adam has said hourly charging is a non starter. Always do price work and preferably a 12 month maintenance contract with 12 equal monthly payments, we have been trading for 40 years and will only work on these terms, if the customer will not accept either of these walk away. Unfortunately you will always come across unpleasant customers who are not reasonable in their demands and expectations, we walk away always!
As to terms and conditions they can come back and bite you so if you go down this route do not make a rod for your own back by going into great detail.
We are mainly commercial with only a few private customers, we do not bother anything too formal for the private work. Just a text outlining what we are doing, cost and payment on completion ALWAYS for non regular clients, our regular private work is on maintenance contract with monthly payments.
You say you give estimates rather than a fixed price, I personally would not accept an estimate unless the work was very involved or complicated, there is plenty of private work about so there is no need to deal with unpleasant, unrealistic people who do not want to pay. Even with terms and conditions do you really want to get involved with the Small Claims Court, or solicitors? The current wait time to bring a small claims action is over 12 months, it is quicker, cheaper and easier to walk away!
Don't honestly think you should need "terms and conditions" for domestic customers. Are you really going to be able to enforce them? Can't imagine taking the customer to court because they were out when you called. Sounds like most of your customers are nice............ if you get bad "vibes" from a new customer or just don't like them, walk away.......... there's usually enough other work about. I had a stroppy new customer a few weeks back.............. was quite abrupt and rude............ just said "I don't need this", turned round and walked away to his susprise.
I have some clients who are elderly/ill who maybe unable to answer the door/ had to go hospital etc, whatever the reason sometimes I turn up and it's impossible or difficult to carry out any work, or there are builders or other tradesmen already in with tool boxes spread all over the lawn, driveway blocked by other vehicles,etc. I always have a plan B, C, D as all work is local so just shoot off and do a different job, there are no T's and C's as all work domestic at the moment, most customers trust me and know how I work, they just ask for the price after I've done the job
I used them as a set of "ground rules"... there will always be the client who no-shows, or tries to screw you over.. T&Cs are not going to come into play with them, unless you are going to involve solicitors and the like - IMO life is too short for that - certainly in garden maintenance... if you were doing big landscaping or large commercial maintence projects that's different. Also you may as well wave good bye to clients if you start going legal on them - they will just get someone else.
These are the ground rules I used - they evolved over the years... and just gave the client an indication of where we would draw the line:
Terms & Conditions
1. We charge to the nearest half hour, and our minimum charge is half an hour.
2. We reserve the right to charge clients who cancel on the day of a scheduled visit
3. All herbicides and lawn treatments are charged at £7.50 a litre or kg.
4. We charge for sharpening chainsaws - so if we need to use a chainsaw in your garden there will be a charge for sharpening it, currently this is £13.00
5. We are gardeners, we do not move deposits left by pets on lawns prior to mowing them, sorry.
6. We are not responsible if we damage underground pipes, cables, led garden lights and solar chargers if we have not been warned they exist. Whilst we do our utmost to spot such things... if they are hidden we have little chance of knowing they are there!
7. We use online portals to advertise our work and gain business (Facebook, Instagram, Bark, Google and our own website), and do take pictures for use on these platforms. Should you not want your garden used to help us with this work, please email to that effect. No gardens precise location or owner will be published.
8. Invoices are due for immediate payment.
We always charged by the hour - I know lots of you think that is bad practice - but it worked for us
You don't need T&Cs until you need them...... then it's too late.