Can I cancel a quasi-contract if I can't get any information from my client?

Sebbie

So in early December I accepted to rebuild a friend of a friend's website for an amount of money. Silly me, I didn't ask for half the amount upfront with the other half being given once I delivered the project.

Since then I haven't been able to get any information from the client. I went on elance to get a graphic artist (because I'm a programmer and not an artist) and I've paid an eskrow. However, I sent a few questions to the client weeks ago (what kind of layout do you want, do you have a high resolution file of your logo, who's your target audience, etc) and I can't get an answer. In fact I have sent the email over and over again and despite our mutual friends telling me they still want the site redone I can't get ANY information.

I know I've made some serious mistakes on my part but I was working through the mutual friend and he was giving me the information I needed and had given me the green light (hence why I got the freelancer on elance).

I don't want to lose any more money than I have to here and I'm tired of chasing after them. Could I get in legal problems if I tell them "if I don't get the information I need by Friday I am cancelling the project".

Edit: I should probably mention that I live in Ontario

Tom819

Is there a contract? Like written out this is the price for this work, etc, etc, etc?

If not then probably not.

Sebbie

Well there wasn't a contract aside from the verbal one that was "yeah I'll redo your site and import all the content for 1500". Since then there has been a total communication breakdown where I can't even get an answer when I send out an email.

Bowen

Here's what I'd do, morally dubious but fuck people that string you along:

* Stop all work, kaput.
* Pay for work you commissioned out of your own pocket.
* Forget about it.
* If in a few weeks/months they contact you again, negotiate a contract, add in the additional time/money you already spent, increase your wage, get half up front as per the contract

Madpanda

IANAL but verbal contracts mean dick.

Do you have a more direct way to contact this person i.e phone or in person? Can you enlist the aid of your friend to get in contact?

Sebbie

Edit: There's some weird stuff going on with the forum. I had initially written a post and it got posted twice and by trying to remove one it removed the other. My original message said that I basically want to do what bowen replied.

kaliyama

Madpanda wrote:

IANAL but verbal contracts mean dick.

Do you have a more direct way to contact this person i.e phone or in person? Can you enlist the aid of your friend to get in contact?

If you're not a lawyer, how do you know verbal contracts mean dick?
See, e.g. http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/contracts-101-make-legally-valid-30247.html

Sebbie

Madpanda wrote:

Do you have a more direct way to contact this person i.e phone or in person? Can you enlist the aid of your friend to get in contact?

I've been emailing the friend and I've been pleading him for answers. Last week he told me that I'd have everything I need Monday morning (yesterday). Yesterday afternoon I fired out an email wondering what the status of the information was and I have yet to get an answer.

kaliyama wrote:

If you're not a lawyer, how do you know verbal contracts mean dick?
See, e.g. http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/contracts-101-make-legally-valid-30247.html

I'm aware that verbal contracts can be legally binding but I was hoping that the fact that I can't get the information I need that it would somehow annul it since I don't have any of the information I need to do any of the work.

Bowen

See if you can't get the artist to let you not pay him because the funding fell through first and foremost. Get the money back from escrow. Apologize explain the customer was a butt to you, most of them are pretty forgiving, especially as a freelancer yourself they know the deal.

If you want to try and salvage this: Schedule a meeting via phone to deal with the outstanding issues, make a list, bring examples. If you can't get a meeting, just drop the issue from that point.

Bowen

I think the general rule of thumbs in small claims is that both parties have to be participating in negotiations for a verbal to have validity. Since they are no longer active, they've pretty much dropped the ball. You could probably get damages for work you've done if you pushed it, that's if you no longer want to work with them at all. But I don't know how Small claims court works in crazy land up there.

Sebbie

bowen wrote:

I think the general rule of thumbs in small claims is that both parties have to be participating in negotiations for a verbal to have validity. Since they are no longer active, they've pretty much dropped the ball. You could probably get damages for work you've done if you pushed it, that's if you no longer want to work with them at all. But I don't know how Small claims court works in crazy land up there.

Thanks, I might just send them a message with a deadline where I need the stuff or else I'll move on. I don't really want to burn bridges so I won't try to claim any damages (since most of the work I've done has been overhead stuff) and I might want to enlist my friend's help in the future. I'll give them until the end of the day to send me an answer as to why I haven't received anything and if I don't receive it I will tell them they have until Friday or else I'm cancelling it.

Bowen

Give them a phone call, phone calls are really hard to ignore. Really hard.

Emails can just be passed around and forgotten, someone's out of office, sick, so on.

Aldo

Sebbie wrote:

bowen wrote:

I think the general rule of thumbs in small claims is that both parties have to be participating in negotiations for a verbal to have validity. Since they are no longer active, they've pretty much dropped the ball. You could probably get damages for work you've done if you pushed it, that's if you no longer want to work with them at all. But I don't know how Small claims court works in crazy land up there.

Thanks, I might just send them a message with a deadline where I need the stuff or else I'll move on. I don't really want to burn bridges so I won't try to claim any damages (since most of the work I've done has been overhead stuff) and I might want to enlist my friend's help in the future. I'll give them until the end of the day to send me an answer as to why I haven't received anything and if I don't receive it I will tell them they have until Friday or else I'm cancelling it.

Don't send ultimatums over e-mail, that's the best way to make someone hate you. Give them a call, if the person you need is out of office, request to speak to someone else of his department. If you get someone on the line who knows about the project or is close enough to the fire to say anything meaningful: explain the situation, ask if they can provide you with a status update and a timeline of when you can expect to hear more about it. If you can't get anyone on the line, ask politely when you should call again and call around that time. If they are going "I can ask him to call you": politely refuse, you don't have to give a reason, because the reason is that you don't trust him enough to lift a finger.

If you get nothing out of them your best bet is to send an e-mail with a description of events: [1] you had a verbal agreement for you to do work for him, [2] despite repeated attempts to work out the contract it did not work out [3] you decided to put the project on-hold and will not perform any work until they contact you.

It was silly of you to invest any of your own money before you got anything on paper. The first rule of work is that you don't do anything until there's signatures on paper somewhere.

Bowen

It's also why most freelance/contracts take half money down too.

Thanatos

Did you ever actually talk to the friend of your friend, or did you just talk to your friend?

Cauld

I'm not a lawyer either, but my understanding of contracts is that if you back out of your side there's no penalty besides them being able to back out of their side (unless otherwise agreed to). IE if you don't do the website, they don't pay you. So you're fine there. You'd still owe the graphic designer of course.

zepherin

Depends, this is Canadian civil law not American, but in the United States if the contract is impossible to complete it is rendered void, without the information from the buyer it is impossible to complete the task. However you made a contract with the graphic designer so regardless of your other contract you owe them for the work they completed and you have to fulfill your end of that contract. I don't know how much that differs in Canada. However professionally Aldo has it right, even though you can probably prevail in court, Aldo has the right method for getting results.

MrMonroe

I am not your attorney, and you are not my client, and therefore this is not binding legal advice, but it is highly unlikely that an entity with whom you have a verbal contract will take you to court over your failure to fulfill your obligations under said contract. The costs of litigation are likely far and away above the value of this contract.

You are in a shit situation. It is in your best interests to, in a much more politic way than I am about to advise, tell them to get right fucked. Stop all work until they make clear that they are willing to actually pay you for the work.

Grid System

Why do you feel that it's necessary to cancel the contract? If the client doesn't give you the information you need, you don't do the work because you can't do the work. If the client does give you the information you need, you do the work on whatever timeline is convenient for you.

Jam Warrior

Telephone man. Emails silence could be for many reasons. Phoning will either reveal that they are indeed genuinely dodging you or yield up an explanation.

spool32

This video is 38 minutes long, it has vulgarity, and it explains everything you've done wrong with this deal. It's extremely useful information for design professionals like you are attempting to become. I say 'attempting to become' because professionals don't start work on the basis of things people said. If you're serious about your career you should watch it all the way through.