Sub CONTRACTORS' contracts

[Leftie]

I take on resaerch work and then find suitable independent telephone interviewers to do part of the work, or develop web sites to gather the data.

Of late one interviewer has been giving me problems by late delivery of work, such that this morning I almost had to bin a months work from three interviewers because the fourth one didn't deliver his quarter on time, and I was therefore unable to meet the client's deadline of 5pm yesterday. I won an 11th hour reprieve when the client agreed that as long as the work was with him Tuesday morning it would be OK. Occasionally I get a larger bill than expected, which broadly I live with and if an interviewer keeps over pricing I stop using them.

At the moment I have only emails and telephone calls with them agreeing to do the work by a certain date at a certain day rate. I trust their honesty in terms of how much time they actually spend on the work and 90% of the time it comes back well within expectations. It is quite difficult to say how long work will take as often they are 'cold' calling people to get interviews, have to negotiate with PA's to get to the senior staff for interview, send email questions, be flexible to do the interview at the interviewees convenience and end up with broken appointments and wasted time.

I also use web developers and programmers in the same way: a claer idea on price and a set delivery date in an email.

I was thinking of getting a solicitor to do me a template contract detailing the day rate, the maxiumum amount they could invoice and the delivery date of the work.

Thing is, would such a contract do anything more than sharpen the minds of errant or pi55 taking sub-contractors (which might be enough) and could it make the 4th contractor responsible for the whole of the work being cancelled if s/he failed to deliver his quarter on time? ( am I likley to pursue it for £10k?) I am also concerned that the 3 interviewers who delivered on time and in budget might feel that I don't trust them or start invoicing up to the maximum amount once it is written down.

Any advice?

[justinp1]

From a legal standpoint if one of your subcontractors breaches their contract, then you would be entitled to damages from them.

Now... that would be a worst case scenario, as we dont want to go around sueing eachother, and what we really want to do is just make money as easily as possible.

One option would be to rather than have an overall t&c's with all contractors, it may be easier to negotiate each contract as it comes in. That way you could state exactly what is needed by what date and not only will this sharpen the mind of the contractor, it would probably get results.

The problem becomes in that *if* your losses really are £10,000 if you do not fulfil your contract if you put this as a 'damages' clause in your suplliers contracts they may run a mile.

I would suggect a way forward would be to tighten up contracts at both ends and protect yourself from loss.

For example, when you are negotiating your contracts to supply, instead of an 'all or nothing' deal, perhaps add a damage clause whereby if *you* are late then what you get paid is X% less per day/week/whatever.

Then rather than your contract get scuppered at the last second leaving you high and dry, even if you *were* late in supplying then they could not unilaterally pull out - you would just have to take the sting on the lower payment - but this is better than nothing!

You could then incorporate similar clauses into your subcontractors contracts, so at the end of it if you are going to take a hit then at least you are not paying full whack for late data either. The key to cover yourself would be to also give yourself some leaway. For example, if you have to supply by Friday or have financial consequences, then set your contractors financial penalties if they dont supply by the Wednesday. Thus even if they do push the limit a bit, then this will not in fact affect you, apart from the fact you will owe them less!

[Leftie]

justinp1 said:

From a legal standpoint if one of your subcontractors breaches their contract, then you would be entitled to damages from them.

Now... that would be a worst case scenario, as we dont want to go around sueing eachother, and what we really want to do is just make money as easily as possible.

One option would be to rather than have an overall t&c's with all contractors, it may be easier to negotiate each contract as it comes in. That way you could state exactly what is needed by what date and not only will this sharpen the mind of the contractor, it would probably get results.

The problem becomes in that *if* your losses really are £10,000 if you do not fulfil your contract if you put this as a 'damages' clause in your suplliers contracts they may run a mile.

I would suggect a way forward would be to tighten up contracts at both ends and protect yourself from loss.

For example, when you are negotiating your contracts to supply, instead of an 'all or nothing' deal, perhaps add a damage clause whereby if *you* are late then what you get paid is X% less per day/week/whatever.

Then rather than your contract get scuppered at the last second leaving you high and dry, even if you *were* late in supplying then they could not unilaterally pull out - you would just have to take the sting on the lower payment - but this is better than nothing!

You could then incorporate similar clauses into your subcontractors contracts, so at the end of it if you are going to take a hit then at least you are not paying full whack for late data either. The key to cover yourself would be to also give yourself some leaway. For example, if you have to supply by Friday or have financial consequences, then set your contractors financial penalties if they dont supply by the Wednesday. Thus even if they do push the limit a bit, then this will not in fact affect you, apart from the fact you will owe them less!

My clients' contract terms are dictated by them and are standard central Govt. contracts with a schedule of work. We get some input, so I suppose I could ask for each activity to be treated sperately?

At present none delivery of one part technically puts the entire contract at risk (for example the latest £10,00 was a part of a 500K contract with 100k in this year) but I think they just wouldn't pay for the particular piece that was late. This was the problem with the last piece, only about £10,000 worth but not reaching the agreed sample would mean the work was useless as it fed into a conference next week and they won't pay, but I have 3 other contractors who have delivered on time who rightly expect their £2,500 each.

I don't want to scare or penalise them all, but their personal problems and other work demands can risk my reputation (we have never in 6 years failed to hit a deadline) and my bank account. I think at the least I should have something that says if they don't deliver on time they don't get paid, and any variation to this must be obtained in writing from me (e.g. extended deadlines). I could limit their liability to the work they are doing, unless achieving the whole sample is a contractual requiremnet?

Then I could just quckly ditech the less reliable one(s) , but his work is top notch and brings me in a profit whereas some of the more reliable ones tend not be be as thorough and have smaller margins.