Quote:
Originally Posted by Hugh R
If you ever get where you don't ever want to do business with someone again, and can't get the money through whatever means, as a last revenge, 1099 him to the IRS and let him be responsible to the IRS for the taxes as income.
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I have already discussed this with my accountant with some other clients. Its seems the new thing to do is run up a bill, change contractors, repeat.
With the business climate here being what it is, I am in a tough spot, do I chase away potential good clients in an effort to flush out bad ones with full credit checks, etc... Or do I keep going the way I am?
In the last 3 years I had one builder stick me for 23K, I put my foot down and demanded he pay up or I would not do another job for him, he moved on to another Surveyor never paying the bill, by the time I finished fighting with him 90% of the outstanding bills were over 90 days (120 days was normal for this company) and I was outside my legal right to lien the properties.
Another builder went bankrupt, stringing me along with promises to pay right up until the day they closed their doors. 11K gone.
Then a title company stuck me for another 11K, when I started to come after them the office manager threatened to take my biggest client away from me, and she could they were sister companies and she had a lot of pull, so I had to decide fight for 11K or keep my 11K a month client that pays well. I am convinced they collected my fee at closings and pocketed it, but, if I pursue it I will hurt my business greatly.
This guy that wrote this $2400 check, has taken over for the builder that went under, this was an unpaid bill from that builder, I have bent over backwards to appease this guy in order to get paid, I was sick of the stories about a bank draw coming any day now for 3 months and put my foot down. So he wrote a check from a closed account to get his revised plans to pull his permit to build the house.
I also just had another client of the builder that went under come to me to finish their property, I have to break the bad news to them that all their bills on their home are unpaid the the builder ran up a $850 tab on their house as well.
If I get both of these two paid up I will have recovered $3250 of that 11K on that one builder.
BTW- That one builder only worked with me for 4 months, just as I started to get on their case to pay up they closed down. It seems there was a surveyor before me that cut this builder off as well, I was told the other surveyor was not doing his job. This is totally believable there are lot of hacks around these parts.