I dId a partial contract for a company under my company, now they owe me money

[techperson]

Noobie here, recently formed my company to provide IT services and then provided IT services to another company that was subcontracting my work. After a while things derailed and I was put off the contract with half of the job done. The company that contracted me owes me about £8k in consultancy fees and is dragging their feet for the last 2 months to pay me saying their client hasn't yet agreed to pay them. Well I could not care less about that as that is not my responsibility so they should have paid me. I even gave them 15% discount to sort it out quickly but again it didn't work.

I'm thinking about taking legal action, but as it is the first time I've ever done something like that, I was hoping I could get some of your opinions of which route I should take? So far my research has led me to the following:

1. Send a registered letter demanding money to be paid in 7 days to the company official address so I have proof or who signed and delivery
2. Send a couple more letters perhaps? another 1 or 2?
3. Maybe use a mediation service, but I'm not sure if can work in something like this
4. Open a online claim with the court

Any suggestions? Thanks!

[Lance]

you need to google 'dunning'.
There's a common process for it. Follow it.

If it doesn't work then you talk to the experts. A company called Safe Collections gets recommended on here quite frequently.

[LondonManc]

What Lance says.

Plus, what contract did you have with this company? What are the Ts&Cs in terms of payment timing and any conditions imposed for non-payment, etc.?

[malvolio]

And equally importantly, what does it say about conditions for payment on completion?

[techperson]

you need to google 'dunning'.
There's a common process for it. Follow it.

If it doesn't work then you talk to the experts. A company called Safe Collections gets recommended on here quite frequently.

Thanks I'll look into that now

What Lance says.

Plus, what contract did you have with this company? What are the Ts&Cs in terms of payment timing and any conditions imposed for non-payment, etc.?

I know you going to call me stupid, but I didn't have T&Cs for the whole project as it came just after I formed my company and was getting things up to speed, as it was a nice £60k project I didn't think twice when I got verbal agreement with customer and his main contractor to go ahead with the work. I've got video conference calls where it was agreed to do the work asap as I was added to it very late after they had a fall out with the previous contractor. I'm collecting all information here related to the project. I've about 15 site visits, documentation going back and forth, readjusting proposals, scope of work and drawings for the project. I believe we have enough evidence, but now that you mentioned T&Cs, I have some doubts.

And equally importantly, what does it say about conditions for payment on completion?

No initial T&Cs as above, noobie mistake from my side

[Lance]

I know you going to call me stupid <snip>

nope.
You're self-aware so we don't need to