Not paying for garden work

I don’t want to pay because I never asked for this work to be done, didn’t have an agreement with the gardener and I think it’s the sellers fault for not telling him.

If it were me, I'd pay the gardener the other half. It's presumably not a huge amount.

But then, I'd feel bad about a gardener losing income, as I'm afraid I'd suspect that the company would take it out of his wages (even tho' they shouldn't).

I would pay half. You don’t have to do the garden this time. How much is it?

I would pay the half

You are right. You shouldn't be paying for a work you didn't ask for.

But people make mistakes, and the reality is that you've benefited from the work. The previous owners paid half the invoice acknowledging their mistake, and frankly, you should pay the rest as a beneficiary of the work.

Sometimes it's not just who is right or wrong but doing the right thing for everyone involved.

Realistically they should pay in full, but unless it’s an extortionate amount I’d pay half and leave it be.

It sucks for the gardener as this wasn’t his fault.

"I think the court would be likely to award something here."

I'm not so sure about that.

I read the case in the article that you linked to (in which the claimants were unsuccessful anyway).

In most cases, this situation arises when two parties are still negotiating about a contract and they say "OK, you start work now even though we don't have a contract and we'll finalise the details and the costs at a later point". In that case if one party does the work and for some reason the two parties cannot agree on a contract then they will still get paid for doing the work.

When you talk about unjust enrichment it was claimed in the case linked to that the Defendant had approached the Claimant asking for advice. But there is no general right to payment for requested services in the absence of a contract.

However, if a person requests a service knowing that it is only done in return for money then they will have to pay.

In contrast, if somebody takes a risk and offers to do some work in the hope of getting a contract from it then they do not need to be paid.

In the case that was linked, the judge decided that the Claimant had done the work in the hope that they would later get a contract.

Moorgate Capital (Corporate Finance) Ltd v H.I.G. European Capital Partners LLP [2019] EWHC 1421 (Comm)
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But, to bring it all back to the OP's situation:

Imagine if the gardener had come round and OP agreed for him to cut the lawn in the front garden for £X. While he was there, OP and the gardener start discussing how much he would charge for cutting the rear lawn.

The gardener then says "While we're discussing the price, shall I just start mowing the rear lawn anyway?" to which the OP agrees.

They then cannot agree a price but the gardener has already started mowing the rear lawn. In this situation, the gardener can claim a reasonable payment for the extra work done.
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Or another situation, if the gardener comes up to OP and says "Hello, I run a gardening business where I charge people to mow their lawns. Would you like me to mow your lawn?"

OP says "Yes please" without enquiring about the price. She's on the hook for paying in that situation.

In contrast, if the gardener had said "Hello, I run a lawn mowing service. Would you like a demonstration of how good I am at mowing lawns?"

OP says "Yes, please" and the gardener mows the front lawn. OP then says "Well, that wasn't good enough for me so I'm not going to hire you". In that situation the gardener cannot claim for the work he does in showing a potential customer his capability or skills.
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However, the actual situation with the OP, where the gardener did not make any contact at all with her before doing the work is just so far away from those situations that there is no way that the gardener would be able to claim for payment.

You've not lived in a smaller village have you?

Potentially (as we've no idea if OP has moved to a small village), being the newcomer in the village, and word gets round that they've stiffed Bob the Honest Gardner (because that is how the story will be told, not that Bob is a disorganised fuckwit and the old property owners are tight arsed bastards)... then no one ELSE wants to work for OP and either won't take a job or will charge over the odds for it...

This could make life irritating or even a bloody nightmare for the OP - again, depending on where they live and what they may need doing. It may make no odds whatsoever of course!

So you've been in the house nearly 6 months and he's just turned up now? That's ridiculous. They've had ages to cancel. But tbh I'm doubting the story. Unless they booked him on a rolling contract from May - Autumn every year with nothing it between? In which case he should definitely be sending a reminder text before his first annual visit. It's possible he's just turned up and decided to pull a fast one. Have you actually spoken to the previous owners to check if they really are paying him half?

It is clearly the previous owners fault but if it were me I would pay the gardener half out of goodwill. You have benefitted from the mistake in that your garden has now been worked on and the Gardener should not be out of pocket.

Possibly, the former owner just assumed that the new owner would continue wanting to have the gardener - so it wasn't actually a mistake in not cancelling the service.

Even so, it very much wasn't their call to make and they are thus still liable.

Why would it be £10? OP hasn't indicated the price at all, but the gardener would be unlikely to be spending his time pursing ten quid.

Yes, I wondered this too.

If the house was empty and so the gardener would naturally send the invoice straight to the owner, why did he knock on the door to hand it over?

He can only have realised that there obviously was somebody living there now - in which case you would naturally expect he would just call or message the owner first to check that it was still their house and they did still want the service.

Even if there hadn't been any signs of change of ownership or residence, you never know how somebody's finances can change - so a sensible contractor would have messaged a wwwk before to say "I'll be at 28 Acacia Drive for the usual big spring clean up on Thursday and will send you the invoice after the work is completed as normal - please let me know if this isn't convenient or there are any other issues".

I do think there are some tradespeople who just see 'work done = get paid' and don't quite get the concept of checking first that the customer is happy with the agreement and willing and able to pay; or they go ahead and risk it anyway and then plead their case and/or get aggressive if they don't get paid without issue.

You can do as much back-breaking, perfect work as you like - but if you don't have an agreement in place for the job, you can't expect to be paid - especially if the work itself (however well done) wasn't actually wanted.

But why should the OP be out of pocket, none of this is her doing. The contract wasn't anything to do with her. The previous owners should be paying the gardener.

If he was a regular gardener though,he would have known the house was empty and for sale (garden was being maintained whilst up for sale?) so I would also say some of the onus was on him to check with the (previous) owner it still needed doing. However, he would see when he arrived, that the garden was neat and tidy and evidence of someone now living there.

YANBU contract with them and they’ve already said it was their fault so they now need to pay.

What repercussions would you be expecting?!

They don't tend to work through the winter.

Yes the previous owners should pay. However, I'd probably just pay half as it's likely only £10 and then it's done and dusted and I wouldn't have to worry about repercussions. I wouldn't want the worry when such a small amount of money could sort it.

I smell a CF tbh

never had a gardener but neighbours have so just wondering where he has been until now?

No he won’t. He can insist the previous owner pay or he will take them to small claims court. It’s nothing to do with op.

Of course you shouldn't pay, and it's completely unprofessional for him to come back and ask for half of the money. Money is owed by the person who booked his services.

Why don’t you pay the OP’s share out of goodwill then?

TBH, I’d pay it to get rid of the issue but in principle, the previous owners are at fault here.

On a side note, change the locks.

You don’t know how many other ‘helpers’
might turn up!

The gardener won’t be out of pocket because the gardener will need to get full pay from the original owners. It’s not rocket science.

I'd be happy to pay the half. It's just a mistake and you have a neat garden.