UK Company reducing my invoice

[w1nxn]

Hi everyone

I have a very big issue with a company that I cary out 90% of my work with.

I basically travel all over the UK surveying luxury bathrooms prior to the ordering and delivery of the goods. It's a set payment of £102 per job.

Occasionally, as we humans do, I may make the odd error, missing a bath waste or something very trivial. When I receive my signed invoice back, it will sometimes have a debit for £25 for each error made. 25% 'fine' shall we call it for now.

I have no way of contesting this before the debit is made, and if I am being totally honest, about 70% of these 'fines' are made in error because they do not have the correct procedures in place (as in a competent person) to understand where and how certain issues arise during a bathroom installation. And it's taking me months and months to get to evidence so I can contest or accept it.

So, my gripe here is this.....

1. Can a company reduce your invoice legally?

2. If they can, do they have to give you proof of reason and also give you time to contest the decision before reducing my invoice.

3. This was a 'rule' implemented approx 12months after starting work for them and no contract changes have been made therefore nothing signed etc. Maybe there is a possibility in re-invoicing for every penny of my 'fines"?

I would really appreciate some feed back on this so thank you very much in advance

Cheers

w1nxn

 

[Tony Grant]

Hi, I am not a lawyer but on quick review, it seems that there are quite a few issues playing a part here.
One point is that if you didn't have risk involved in the contract, ie. the loss of £25 per error, then the work could be seen as employment rather than sub-contract and judging by the timing you mention, this possibly has something to do with why it was implemented.
You can approach a tribunal but I am aware of a similar case, that was won, although by default as the contracting company never acknowledged the tribunal and did not attend either. So although the case was won, it turned out that there was very little chance of recovering the money.
Because you have known of this process for 5 years and continued to do the work, it could be argued that you have accepted that contract change, even if implied rather than written.
Without things getting too out of hand, where possibly no one really ends up winning, the logical route would be to try to arrange a meeting with the finance director and anyone else who might be able to arrive at a common sense solution.
If you do try this though, do make sure you have an independent representative with you. It need not be a legal representative as this could put the company on the defensive, but maybe someone with some understanding of the issue and maybe a good mediator type person.
So, I'm sorry I haven't got a full legal answer for you but the winning way will always be compromise, where the chance of that even only slightly exists.
Good luck.