RussBoy

Hoping someone can do me a big favour. I run a UK Ltd company offering professional web design and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) Services to clients in the UK and Spain (where I now live).

In 3 years of trading I've not had a bad debt but I'm coming up against a tricky situation which I'd like to 'plug' for the future; basically, I take 50% deposit before a job (unless it's a huge job then it's staged a bit more) and 50% upon full roll out. In this case, the client paid their 50% and changed the scope of the project which actually meant what they paid accounted to about 35%.

Anyway, the relationship between my clients (a girl and a older guy) seems to be going a bit AWOL and as a result it looks as though they won't see the project through. Problem is, they didn't sign a contract (I've never needed a client to etc.) I have invoiced them for the remaining a mmount and given 7 days to pay - they keep agreeing to a meeting and cancelling at the last minute - basically giving me the run around). I don't want to say - ok, in 2 weeks I scrap the site (which actually stands me at what they've paid so far, though I can re-deploy a database I installed for them worth £200 or so) - as I'm worried in say 3 months they give me the remaining balance and say let's finish it (i.e. I need closure so I can re-deploy, make a few quid and forget about them - I don't want a an unfinished project with valuable salvagable resources just sitting there for ever).

Soooo....I'm after a contract I can issue in future, if any other web designers/hosts etc are on here which covers me for these sorts of events. I could go to a brief of course but this is such a rare occurance it's really not worth the huge investment (i.e. the risk of bad debt is more worthwhile) but I'd be willing to donate a beer or two to anybody whose contract I can copy/customise

Cheers guys, appreciate any help.


Russ