Legal Question in Business Law in Nebraska
Payment of invoices
Customer (a home builder) refuses to make payment on some older invoices but will pay more recent invoices (they do this knowing the time for filing a lien on the older ones has passed and are avoiding having liens filed on the newer invoices by paying them first). If they designate on their check that the payment is to go towards a certain invoice #, are we legally able to apply it to the older outstanding balances instead?
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Payment of invoices
That's a really good question. Usually if the parties are the SAME (same buyer same seller) the payments are applied FIFO and this would be spelled out in contract. I would need to review ( or DRAFT) such provision for you to fully advise.
You could also suspend further services unless all PAST invoices are paid.
Re: Payment of invoices
This is one of those legal questions you will want to pay for a legal opinion before you act on it. I'm also not a NE attorney, but I agree with Mr. Anderson that your current agreement(s) should have addressed this; so you might be able to make a change in those, get the changes to apply to your relationship and then apply payments to the old invoices. A court is not likely to tell you that you don't get to get paid for services rendered and I believe you can make an argument that the continuing relationship helps your argument. You'll want an NE attorney to review this, and I can get one to work on this with me. Of you can just find one yourself or maybe Mr. Anderson is admitted in NE or knows someone who is.
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