Not paying for garden work

Tell the gardener to fuck off.

You owe him nothing. You didnt contract his services ergo you are not liable.

The previous owners had the contract with him so they should pay up, not you.

This.
Not informing the gardening contractor was their error and they should stand the full cost initially. They should not be sending the gardener back to you for the balance of his fee. CF!

You bought the house in December.
How has this only just happened?
Where has the gardener been until now.
Surely he could tell the property was no longer empty

You have absolutely no idea of the circumstances of that case.

You have no idea if the previous owner actually agrees to pay half or not! They could have paid in full and the gardener is now trying it on with you.

Or he could be genuine.

Whilst you are not obligated to pay anything, there is the consideration that the gardener could be vindictive if genuinely out of packet and could return with weedkiller etc.

Personally I would not pay a penny and refer him back to the previous owner who should have terminated their contract with him.

what will you do if window cleaners turn up? Or an annual clean house guttering service? Or a tree surgeon that maintains the trees? All things that the previous owners could have hired annually!

You need to take a hard line and refuse to pay.

You are not being unreasonable and have given the gardener the correct and polite response. The previous owner has full responsibility for this and has to pay in full.

You should not enter into any discussion or negotiations with either the gardener or the previous owner as you need to protect yourself from being drawn into any sort of entanglement or chance of creating the impression of having entered an agreement or tacit acknowledgement of responsibility by offering any amount of money as if payment for services.

You really have no idea who said what to whom or what communication there was before the gardener went to your house. You do not know what the previous owner could be up to or whether other events or similar things could turn up. Hence have no involvement in this.

Furthermore the gardener should not have come back to your house a second time to request money. If he comes back, request that he do not come to your house again.

(Not clear how he got in to do the gardening. Perhaps consider your security arrangements and have a locked gate or something.)

There is another legal remedy available; to pursue the other party to the contract for payment. That would have to have been exhausted first before any claim could bea made on OP.

Was your case something involving the council where you were mandated to maintain something, didn't, then the council brought in a service to undertake the work and you were billed? As that can happen and that's different.

I don't think you read your own link properly, as it seems clear to me that a court would NOT award the gardener in this instance.

There is another poster on this thread who ran precisely the argument you raise here - and lost. See screenshot.

You say quantum meruit is “far more about cases where there is an implied contract” - sorry but that’s balls. If the factual circumstances are such that the court can conclude there was a contract, then the doctrine doesn’t apply. It’s for situations where there is no contract and no legal remedy would otherwise be available.

How did he access your property personally and also with equipment and for waste disposal?

Have you changed locks, codes, etc. throughout the property?

What other arrangements might the previous owners have had in place?

I wouldn't pay him as he wasn't working for me. I might offer to support him in claiming his payment from previous owners. I certainly would ask my lawyer to give the previous owners a bollocking and possibly demand a list of who ever has had access to keys and codes and so on and whether these have been retrieved.

What's next, coming in and finding painters and decorators for the annual Christmas refresh the old lot forgot to cancel?!

That surprises me less. My gardener stops in November and turns back up again in April, never get any notice. Similarly the window cleaner just turns up every four months.

There's no point in saying what we would do. We're all different.

I personally would be happy I didn't have to think of the garden yet and pay half but it really isn't your responsibility to pay him. They fucked up.

Plus some people are stroppy fuckers and trash their work if they don't get paid. I couldn't be arsed.

As a gardener would you turn up for a service after presumably at least six months of no contact without speaking to anyone first?

Disbelieve it all you like, it happened. Your argument about the tradesman is exactly the argument we put in defence but lost.

In this case did the person who ordered the service believe in good faith that they were acting as your agent, or did they believe they owned the property?

I’m a gardener and have been in a similar position. In my view, you shouldn’t pay. The previous owners should pay. They should have informed the gardener and cancelled the arrangement. If you want to, you could pay something but, when it happened to us, we pursued it with the previous owners.

I really don’t think any court would even consider granting this, it would imply that a tradesman could randomly come to any house and do work and then bill the owner. Quantum Meruit is far more about cases where there is an implied contract, or certainly co-operation or collaboration between the parties. If OP had been there, chatted to the gardener and not tried to stop him then maybe, as she would have implicitly accepted the contract. But she had no contract, wasn’t there, and had no warning. So no, I certainly wouldn’t pay.

The OP has said they do it themselves, if they wanted to pay for a gardener I'm sure they were aware such services were available.

Along the lines of the person who ordered the work was was acting in good faith (believed they held some sort of right/responsibility) and the person who carried out the work believed that the say-so of the person ordering it was sufficient. We made the point that on that basis anyone could order anything to be done to someone else’s property and leave them with the bill, but that didn’t convince the county court.

While I feel very sorry for the gardener, it is the previous owners mistake and they need to pay the bill in full.

This is so odd. I have regular seasonal work on my house and not one service has ever just assumed and turned up. Also, who is the invoice addressed to? A contractor will address it to Mr and Mrs Smith, house address.

So you're saying this person turned up, did the work without a by-your-leave then came back and knocked on the door to give the invoice? None of this makes sense. The invoice would have been emailed or possibly put through the door at time of service, addressed to the client.

There are two parties at fault here (previous owners and the gardener). This is not your problem.

YANBU, as you rightly say, you didn't ask the gardener to do it (previous owners did) and so you shouldn't pay for it
BUT
If they did a good job, would you consider using them again?
f so, make a deal - 4 visits for the price of 4 sort of thing - for them to do more work for you?

And by the way the doctrine only covers genuine mistakes, for anyone who’s wondering. The following example wouldn’t be covered because it’s someone deliberately trying to engineer the situation.

I might start turning up to PPs with stuff and leaving things I no longer want on their doorstep, then demand they pay half of the value as “they have the benefit” of said item, whether they wanted it or not!

No way would I pay. I would be concerned about some stranger doing work I never asked for on my property without my permission/knowledge!