When You Have Not Been Paid for the Services You Performed or the Goods You Sold: Now What?
Suing for Non-Payment of Services.
You sent several invoices to your customer. You called your customer several times, and you also sent several emails. It looks as if your customer has no intention of paying you for the services performed or the goods you sent. This is when you need to consult a business litigation lawyer.
Suing the customer for non-payment is of course an option, but not necessarily the first one. Prior to commencing any lawsuit you need to consider the risk/reward, including what will it cost you to sue in terms of legal fees and expenses, a lost customer relationship, and the time you will be spending focusing on a lawsuit rather than on your business. Before filing a legal action, it often makes sense to have your business litigation attorney send a Demand Letter, laying out the facts that support your claim, the potential legal consequences of non-payment, and a demand for payment. Receiving a formal Demand Letter from a business litigation lawyer makes it clear to the non-paying customer that you are serious about pursuing your right to be paid and, may result in either payment or the commencement of negotiations leading to payment.
Sometimes a Demand Letter does not result in immediate payment and instead you receive a detailed response providing the customer’s reasons for non-payment. This response is potentially useful and needs to be considered and reviewed carefully with your business litigation lawyer so that the two of you can assess the validity (or lack of validity) to what your customer is saying, and whether based on the response you want to consider accepting less than full payment. In addition, often a response to a Demand Letter will have been authored by a lawyer, so it will give your business litigation attorney insight into the strength of any defenses your customer may have to a lawsuit and, how best to craft any lawsuit that you may decide to file. Finally, the response to your Demand Letter may give you a clue as to whether or not the dispute can be resolved without the need for litigation.
Regardless of whether you are able to resolve your dispute without litigation, or you need to file a lawsuit in order to obtain what you are owed, the experienced business litigation lawyers at Kravet & Vogel, LLP can provide invaluable assistance and guidance in achieving your goal.