Legal Question in Business Law in Arizona

Your work order would be the controlling agreement and should contain the provisions regarding when the customer is obligated to pick up the work and pay the balance due. I have no knowledge of your business or the type of work done, and thus, do not have any idea what steps you can take to force the customer to act. It is probably the case that the customer cannot pay the balance owed, and so he is not going to come in. You probably have lien rights and at some point can sell the property and pay what is owed to you.

As stated above this is a good example where the question at hand is sometimes caused or aggravated by the underlying document, i.e. sales contract. It is common that clients come to us with an "incident" but an underlying cause of that "incident" is what I call a "legal brick house" problem, i,.e. the contract is bad or the legal formational documents of the business are bad. I had this problem before and the client's warehouse was full of grocery store fixtures not picked up or accepted by the supermarket thus preventing his work on other orders. It was a disaster because he then had to rent outside space, but in looking at the contract I saw no provisions for interest or storage charges.

The remedy for the next case is to have your contract reviewed and approved. Clients get sample contracts from their former employer or on the Internet which are not complete and do not anticipate issues. It is so cheap and 1/10th the price to prevent the problem than to fix it. Now, basically you sue. The good news is that even with a bad contract you should be able to enforce it -- but for lower contract damages. Does your contract allow for attorneys fees? You may get fees and costs without contract or invoice saying so, but if it said so then they would be mandatory in your favor. Big difference. A good contract is leverage and leverage is what you need is to get the buyer "off the dime."

Good luck.

Law Offices of Donald W. Hudspeth, P.C.

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Phoenix, Arizona 85012

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