non payment and reposession of equipment

[lysaer]

Hi all, newbie here

I own a small to medium sized IT company and am having an issue with a contractor and looking for some advice please.

We installed some equipment for a client and we were contracted by a company which was contracted by the main contractor.

In our original T's & C's we stated that all equipment was still the property of our company until full payment for the goods had been received.

We finished the job around 6 months ago now, put in our invoice with the agreed 30 days terms, all of our work has been signed off and ok'd but the contractor has still not paid us and is now 4 months overdue.

They have cited that they do not have the funds and that the main contractor is withholding a large payment they are owed as well.

We were wondering if we could send a notification to the contractor who employed us stating we will be coming to repossess our equipment due to non payment, also should we request permission from the client to enter the premises to take our equipment, failing that the client would allow us, how should we proceed legally for removing our equipment from the clients site, could we get a court order ?

Thank you in advance

[pmeswani]

Re: non payment and reposession of equipment

Why not transfer the debt to a debt collection or apply for a winding up petition?

[eek]

Why not transfer the debt to a debt collection or apply for a winding up petition?

A winding up order will do you no good. The best plan would be to attempt to recover the goods by notifying the end customer of the problem and so hopefully address the issue from the other side of the equation.

[Safe Collections]

Hi

OK so to clarify, the situation is:

You -------- Sub contractor (The person or company where the order originated) ---------- End Client (The place the goods were delivered to/installed at)

Presumably you have had no direct contact with the End Client and your contractual relationship is with the Sub Contractor (Ie you invoiced them and not the End Client?)

If that's the case then it is highly likely your retention clause is null and void.

Retention is murky at the best of times as it is largely based on contradictory case law and it is not defined in statute. But as a general rule if you supply goods and claim retention, you lose retention if these goods are subsequently sold again.

It is entirely possible that the End Client has paid the sub-contractor, if this is the case taking these goods is theft. As ownership has transferred to the new owners.

Can you confirm we understand the situation correctly? As answering the questions below will depend on the situation

We were wondering if we could send a notification to the contractor who employed us stating we will be coming to repossess our equipment due to non payment, also should we request permission from the client to enter the premises to take our equipment, failing that the client would allow us, how should we proceed legally for removing our equipment from the clients site, could we get a court order ?

[jmo21]

Hi

OK so to clarify, the situation is:

You -------- Sub contractor (The person or company where the order originated) ---------- End Client (The place the goods were delivered to/installed at)

Presumably you have had no direct contact with the End Client and your contractual relationship is with the Sub Contractor (Ie you invoiced them and not the End Client?)

If that's the case then it is highly likely your retention clause is null and void.

Retention is murky at the best of times as it is largely based on contradictory case law and it is not defined in statute. But as a general rule if you supply goods and claim retention, you lose retention if these goods are subsequently sold again.

It is entirely possible that the End Client has paid the sub-contractor, if this is the case taking these goods is theft. As ownership has transferred to the new owners.

Can you confirm we understand the situation correctly? As answering the questions below will depend on the situation

from the OP it sounds like there was another contractor in the middle as well I think.

We installed some equipment for a client and we were contracted by a company which was contracted by the main contractor.

Making SC's hypothesis even more likely!