He wont pay, so I took him to court, but I didnt know HE'S A SOLICITOR

what's up guys um i'm about to tell you about a story um something that happened to me and uh it was actually a big cloud over my head for about a year and a half in my life and i just i didn't expect it to take the twists and turns that it did and um i definitely did not expect the outcome uh that finally came and i'm going to try and tell it as quickly as i can because there's actually a lot to it but i'm just going to try and synthesize it down to the the simplest story and i'm sure you're going to find it at least interesting um or maybe even funny it's very stressful for me but um before i get into it i just want to ask um i want to get to 100 000 subscribers it would really help me out if you could click the subscribe button click the like button obviously you can wait to the end and see what you think of the video before you click the like button but i know i'm a long way off i'm about 40 000 subscribers now so um if you could click the subscribe button i'd really appreciate it so i had a customer who i went to look at his floor and what he had was a pine not pitch pine or hard pine it was a maybe a large pine floor it's a herringbone parquet floor that was running through his dining room hallway and living room so he had the living room here like the hallway coming out here and then the dining room here and my recommendation to the customer was to get all of it sanded together and the reason is is the herringbone pattern actually ran through the door now sometimes it's fitted in a way where there's actually a the border goes across the doorway so there's a natural sort of line that you can stop to with the lacquer and i said the best way to get a continuous perfectly clean finish is to sand the floor all the way through all three rooms and lock them all together the other option is we can do the three rooms separately but there is a possibility that there may be uh imperfections in the doorways where we the sanding meets you know this one's been sanded and finished and then we've got to sand this side and lacquer it and and i said um there's a good chance um that there is going to be a problem with the lacquer or with the finish and i say this to manage expectations because normally we can do it very well and uh he decided that he wanted to get all three rooms done separately and um even when i was doing the first two rooms i thought you know i kept saying too much you know we're doing this to try and make sure it blends very well and um you know hammering home that he should have got all three done it's better for me as well because i make more money if all three are done at one time it's the uh the economies of scale but it's a better outcome for him as well but he decided he wanted all three rooms done separately and did the first room very happy did the second room very happy and um sorry i just had to check that my uh microphone was working so i wasn't actually sure if you could hear me um so anyway we did the first room he loved it we did the second room he loved it and we did the hallway and he seemed to love it he seemed to be happy but um i didn't receive any payment so um now i had gotten a bit of a funny feeling with this guy because um once he's accepted the job and i had said that there was a deposit of 50 um i sent him the invoice he said actually i don't want to pay 50 i want to pay 30 or even 35 and i just thought that's a bit strange and you know it's kind of a bad it's a bad thing if if you're getting off on a foot like that because it's kind of like we don't trust you that's the kind of vibe that i was getting from him is that he didn't quite trust me but i just said look it's 50 that's what everyone does and never really had a problem with anyone else um with the deposit so so eventually he paid and uh we went through the whole process and um two weeks in fact i think it was might have been more than that i just thought oh he hasn't he hasn't paid us yet so um i contacted him and i said oh could you could you um finalize the bill uh you know make the final payment and uh he said well actually there's a there's a there's a bit of a problem with the finish and we're not quite happy with it could you come and touch it up and i said okay where is this where is this problem it's in the doorway so i said okay i'll come and look at it and i went over and we spent about 10 minutes trying to look for what they had previously said the problem was and i just put a bit of lacquer on this this area to keep them happy you know rubbed it down and um and then they didn't pay me again and i said oh you know can you can you pay the bill or touch the floor up so it's still not quite right and i said okay and i popped over again and um at this point the floor was actually filthy there was there was splats all over the floor um i actually had to clean this area and just before i could actually prep it to to lacquer it i i um taped off around the edge of blocks and i brushed the lacquer in the direction of each individual block on a massive area like this in the doorway just to be completely covered and um he said no it's still not quite right and i said well can you take a picture and send it they said oh it's imperceptible by a camera and i thought right okay well i did actually tell you in the beginning that if we decide to do the rooms this way and by the way it was absolutely fine but i mean to me it was more than acceptable i'm surprised they could see any kind of uh imperfection but um you know when i manage people's expectations like that as for when there is an issue but there wasn't an issue with this one and um i said look i said to you in the beginning we will have an issue here that's how i actually phrased it there will be a an issue in the doorway and you just have to kind of live with it it'll be minimal but you'll have to live with it and um so i said i've been over twice to touch it up so could you please pay the bill and he didn't pay the bill and we were arguing back and forth and it was really stressing me out um and it it sounds it seems kind of stupid now but it was really stressing me out for and i i would take periods where i just wouldn't even speak to them and then we'd have emails back and forth so many emails um but after five months and here comes curveball number one and i did not expect this whatsoever and uh i bet i better just let you have it because basically what happened is they had a plumber come in and change the radiator and they said that the plumber spilt no more than a cup of water and it had damaged the parquet and from the pictures they sent me i could see straight away the blocks were dark on the ends with spikes coming into the blocks and that's basically where the water has soaked into the ends of the blocks and the blocks were cupped and so you've got a flat surface of a block like this or a board when there's more moisture on the underside and the underside expands more than the top side it causes it to to cup like this and i said to them there's clearly been quite a lot of water that's gone down the sides of the blocks because the blocks are cupping and it's soaked into the ends of the blocks whilst the the surface of the blocks where the lacquer is was actually fine by this point it was actually um october and he said well you haven't um sealed the floor properly um now this was a hundred year old pine parquet floor so as i was mentioning before um pitch pine is uh or heart pine is it has a lot of uh moisture it's got high moisture content so it doesn't expand and contract very much whereas normal pine which is very dry it does expand and contract throughout the year and also you have cumulative shrinkage over the years blocks shrink like this and this was a hundred year old parquet stuck down with bitumen there was bitumen down the sides of the block so when there's bitumen down the sides of the blocks you don't get the filler taking to the gaps very well but even when you do we're going into winter their heating system's coming on the air is becoming drier and it's sucking moisture out of the blocks so the gaps are going to open up there is no way you can make a herringbone parquet floor absolutely waterproof but still he insisted it was my fault i haven't sealed the floor properly and therefore they're not going to pay and i i explained to them and by this point i i mean i was so stressed out and it must sound pathetic but like you know it's just one job after you know years of good you know i hear a lot of people say that they have problems with certain customers that are problem customers and they don't want to pay or and i have to admit i think i've been very lucky um but also i think i'm very good at managing expectations and but he insisted that this was my problem this was my fault and therefore he's not going to pay and i was sending him you know these long emails with like the science of word the history like i i wouldn't leave a stone unturned i mean there were so many ways that i was in my mind i was proving that i was right and he was wrong he wasn't having any of it and he said if you want your money you'll have to take it up with the courts so those were his words and um so i thought i'd call his bluff and this is like how it just escalated and um i i sent him a i don't know what you call it now uh a summons well i just sent a it's like from the small claims court you pay 25 pounds it says you owe this much money this person is claiming against you and um he filed his defense like very quickly which i thought was strange um which is you know part of the the next curve ball that's coming and um and so yeah we we ended up going to court and basically we had to go to this first a small court in place called luton where we appoint a independent inspector and we both agreed on an independent inspector from the contract flooring association to come and survey the floor and have a look at the floor and it was at this um court meeting where curveball number two comes along where he says that he is a solicitor so now i find myself taking a solicitor to court and representing myself and um i just thought you know you can imagine like i thought what there's no chance there's no chance i mean it stressed me out so much i can't i can't beat this guy he knows all the tricks and and whatnot he's you know and uh i just i felt so hard done by and um so there we are now i've got an issue that comes five months after i finished the floor that he's trying to not pay me for and i find out that i'm taking him to court and he's a solicitor so um so it a lot of time goes by i mean the whole thing takes so long and it really was a cloud over my head um and eventually the independent inspector comes and has a look at the floor and he's doing all sorts of measurements and stuff and he writes up a report and that doesn't come until a few weeks later and his report agrees with absolutely everything i've said and in fact it didn't go into as much detail as like my version light like all the things i've been saying in the email and now at this point it's a very good idea that the that you just decide to um agree with basically what the independent inspector has said because there's kind of not much of a point going to court um but he decides that he wants to fight it still and he's going not not just going to say oh i've got you know i've got a way of getting around what the independent inspector has said i'm going to disagree with him directly and say that it is shoddy workmanship and he didn't seal the floor properly and and so yeah we go to court and it's in this uh you know i should have looked it up before the video but it's like the main courthouse in london and it's this massive building right in the center of london right by the thames and i go down there and i am i'm in my polo shirt and jeans and i haven't even bought a pen with me um and i just look like a scruff and uh we go up into this elsa well first of all you've got this um arbitration room where they bring you together and before you go to court they try to come to an agreement and um in this room he said well how about we just call it quits how about we just we both go home i don't know you anything you don't know me anything um because i'm kind of i'm looking at maybe losing you know double what i was intending to get um because he was also counter claiming against me to get the floor redone and he said how about we just call it quits now i think i should have smelt blood in the water at this point but i was still i was still furious and um so yeah he said uh shall we just call it quits and i said no you know i don't i don't i'm not happy with that um and then the arbitrators say to me what does it say on the um independent inspectors report and i said well it agrees with me agrees with me 100 and um they said yeah okay and like so they're not allowed to encourage you or give any kind of bias whatsoever but i kind of afterwards i realized they were kind of encouraging me just to let it go to court and then the next question comes from the other side and he says how much are you willing to accept and i had decided before this that i wanted to know about the court system and i wanted to go through it and i was prepared to actually pay because i just i want to be confident if i need to go into the court system in future i just i want to go through it and so i said unless you're prepared to pay everything i'm asking for then that way we'll save an afternoon in court but if not it's kind of getting me shaking now it's it's um it's bringing back a lot of memories but um and he he didn't agree to that so we went into court and uh yeah again i mean i was as pathetic as this sounds i was like shaking i wasn't shaking it's like vibrating like a low level vibrating and my heart rate was up and i just didn't know what to expect and uh and as i said i was in my jeans and t-shirt and or polo shirt and uh i didn't have a pen or any papers and this other guy has a stack of papers like this and um so yeah we won't go through the the all the questions and stuff they ask in court and uh at one point i said um how long have you known the plumber and um my customer's wife said oh we've known him for 20 years um he's a very good plumber you know he's our friend and i said well do you can you see how it's conceivable that someone like me would think that you're just you're trying to blame me because we already had an issue and he's your friend so there were lots of back and forth in the court and there were a load of mess ups and like they didn't have the information and stuff and we just so she was just going off basically what we were saying and again just knowing what i knew and the weakness of his argument and i think also the independent report saying that i won and like she was about to give her verdict and like it's so pathetic because it's just money and i've already committed to go through this process but um like my heart was coming up into my throat without getting a bit stiff and she said we're going to award it to um the claimant which is me and uh oh just a feeling of relief and uh i i strolled home that day or strolled to the train station got the train home and uh yeah it was just such a brilliant feeling because like now i can say to people i took a solicitor to court represented myself and beat him and it renewed my confidence in the judicial system i kind of thought that it was going to be like squarely against me and now in retrospect i think i had every angle covered you know and one of the things that did make me learn for any any of the contractors listening is like it was very valuable that i went back and tried to appease them twice so i said there was going to be an issue there they said there was an issue i still tried to fix it they still said there was an issue and i tried to fix it again i did everything that i could to try and keep them happy so um and that that boated very well and it's kind of taught me like always you know if customer's not happy give as much time and attention as you want because it just it means you've got a stronger case later on and usually it means that your customers happy in the first place and it's never going to go to court anyway so that is my story of um of uh going to court and i've never had anything before i've never had anything since like that and uh i just think that he was a solicitor and i think he just thought he could push me around and i wouldn't pursue him i hope you don't think i'm a bad guy for um for pursuing my customer in the court but um anyways let me know what you think let me know if you've had any similar experiences any other contractors listening to this um also and click the like button please like and subscribe i want to get to 100 000 subscribers have a great day i've got it off my chest bye

Channel: How To Sand A Floor

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Id: 5I5YmJ6z5Kk

Length: 19min 8sec (1148 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 28 2021