to think DH needs to tell this man where to go and to be getting pissed off he wont?

[Dirtydishesmakemesad]

Dh is a self employed web developer.He has run his own business for two years. for the past year he has been doing alot of work for one man with a few smalle jobs as well. This man is awful paying, he pays 200 here 200 there its "oh can i pay next week" or some pie in the sky scheme he has. Our income was never high but we managed nicely the first year (without this client) and since dh was recovering from depression when we set the business up it suited us.

This client hasnt paid for about 6 weeks (and he owed money even before that he was supposed to be paying weekly because of this) not only that he doesnt seem to have any prospect of being able to pay in the near future - he tried to get a few websites done cheaply by going to some company in inida and of course it backfired badly and all of those sites want a refund. He has now told dh that these websites (that dh has never even seen before) need finishing before he can pay dh ANYTHING. It is weeks of work and aparently he has promised they will be done in a few days (not possible) DH has for months now been working 7 days a week pretty much all day and yet we have nothing to show for it. We had to pay the school 50p in 2ps on friday because we didnt actually have 50p other than that.

This week i have ranted at dh so much that he has applied for other freelance work and won 4 new projectss - all of whom will pay more than this guy does even when he does bother paying. My DH is GOOD at what he does and he can get other work when he wants and yet he is still spending god knows how long trying to work with this guy.

The last month for example our income has been less that £300 - for long days 7 days a week WTF I dont get why dh doesnt tell him to piss off??!

Ok it means no work from him n the future but we have no money now so im not sure how that is any worse. Surely by gettign rid of this guy he can concentrate on people who will actually pay him for his time.

I may have just told my dh to grow a pair - so its a bit of an after the fact OP but still AIBU?

Why does your DH just not say he is unable to take on any new work for him uintil the money is settled in full?

No. You are not.

I don't understand how your husband, who has the upper hand here, is not taking control. This guy doesn't own him! He needs him. Your husband does indeed need to strap on a pair.

Worst case scenario - you lose some money because he never pays you. Worst case scenario for him is far worse than that. He needs your husband. When he knows that your husband knows that and your husband starts calling the shots and saying this is the deal, take it or leave it - I bet he falls into line.

But so long as your husband continues to roll over and present his arse, this man will carry on shafting him.

YANBU. But I feel for your DH.

I assume your D is doing the back end web work for a product this guy is selling? He is doing himself no favours by killing himself to meet unreasonable deadlines set by someone else - their failure will become his failure, on his reputation. I would say he needs to disassociate himself from this idiot.

this is exactly what i have been telling hm and yet he seems to have this deep fear of this guys business failing (which it would if dh told him where to go thats pretty clear). The new thng is that aparently some of the programs my dh writes (im not sure of the terminology - its not my thing!) will now be sold on a website run by this guy - again WTF. I have told dh what i think but he keeps getting talked around.
DH has no contract has never had a contact or any other formal agreement to do any work for this guy so i just dont get it.

So what if it does? That's not your husband's problem.

And does he not realise that this guy knows that too? He's treating your husband like this because your husband is letting him!

He needs to say no. That is unacceptable. This is what I want, take it or leave it.

I am not being funny, but your husband will struggle to be successful in business in the long term if he doesn't grow a pair! You cannot be everyone's buddy, be controlled or feel responsible for the choices other people make or the success or failure of their business!

He needs to be professional. Set out terms and conditions, take it or leave it.

Does he lack confidence generally?

I'm not arguing with you btw I realise you feel the same way!

I just want to give your husband a huge wedgie and a slap

He has to put things on a far more proffessional footing.

This guy will no doubt kick and scream about it, because your husband has allowed him to think that he's the boss here, but he's not, is he?

I don't understand what you mean by your DH's programs will be sold by this guy? So he's selling software your DH writes and...what, pocketing the cash? Which is fine if he has paid your DH to do that? Can you tell me a bit about what these programs are (be careful of giving too many details though). Is it licences for web based software (hosted by...) or is he selling executable files?
Show your DH this thread - agree with Hecate, he needs to get a bit more ruthless or he will be walked ovr.

StealthPolarBear is right, your DH needs to put him on stop till he's paid what he owes.

Well hje's not the boss, but he is the customer...i.e. he holds the purse strings. But tbh your DH shouldn't care about that unless those purse strings loosen from time to time :o

He has lacked confidence since the depression, he had a job but lost it because of time off etc. When we started the business i was much more involved but as this guy became more involved it became impossible for me to be involved as much as before simply because i was telling hm to do the opposite to what this guy was and dh for some reason decided to listen to him even at one point telling me that the company we have which we are both joint owners was going to be replaces by a company in which he was 10% owner and this other guy 90% owner. I was horrified by this and pretty much told him that it would severly affect our relationship if he did this. (yes im bitter!)
This aside he is great, great husband, great dad we get on really well so i cant complain about him generally but argh im starting to really lose it with him about this now!

I told him this week that he needs to say no more work not one minute for this guy and concentrate on the other clients (who are actually waiting to PAY deposits etc). I dont personally care if this guy loses his business or anything else I do care that im hungry and i never see who is always locked in his office.

YANBU. It sounds like a bananas set up. Your DH is having his strings pulled by some guy who blatantly doesn't have any money. WTF does he even care if client's business doesn't succeed or not? If the client wants his business to survive, he needs to pay the people who can sort it out for him, ie your DH.

Until he can pay him, your DH is under no obligation to this person whatsoever. Especially without a contract.

Also, having been in similar industry myself, you should never start work on any project without a fee agreed, a contract, and 50% paid upfront.

No offence, but why doesn't your DH know this?

Yes, he is the customer.

But I don't go into tesco, grab something, tell them how much I am going to pay for it and when and tell them that I will be doing lots of shopping over the next few weeks, but won't be paying them for it until they have delivered my christmas shopping.

It just doesn't work like that

The person offering their service dictates how much it will cost, how they will be paid and delivery etc etc.

The person who wishes to buy the service / product decides only if that is acceptable to them. If it is, they buy it. If it is not - they look elsewhere to find it under terms that are acceptable.

OK your last post makes this soiund a hell of a lot more serious? Does this guy have something on your DH? Or is he completely dominating him? I hope it's not an overreaction to say I would consider leaving your DH unless he sorts this out fast - he is going under and dragging you with him for a guy who is doing nothing for him

telling me that the company we have which we are both joint owners was going to be replaces by a company in which he was 10% owner and this other guy 90% owner.

What?! It gets weirder. Why is your DH so beholden to this guy? Is there more to it that you don't know about do you reckon? Or is your DH having some kind of breakdown?

Please say he didn't go ahead with that bonkers idea. I don't blame you for being furious. If it was me I'd have steam coming out of my ears.

stealth im not sure what you mean by executable files etc but its things like dh made a system to run an online shop and a content management thing - not sure what that is classed as!. The arangement was he would get a bit of money if it sold dh was not going to make any formal agreement etc or be paid before hand as far as i understand.

sorry - he was going to do WHAT? give 90% of his company to this guy?

What the fuck?

I hope you don't take this the wrong way but is he in the right state of mind to be running a business? That's just such a bizarre thing to even consider!

I think a better idea would be for him to put the business in your name and you to take control of it for now, deal with the customers, set the terms and just leave your husband to the designing. Until he is a bit stronger.

Well in fairness Hecate it's all to do with relative power and bargaining power. No, you can't dictate terms to Tesco, but if, say, all Hilton hotels in the country decided to get all their deliveries from them, I bet they could! In this case, small (one man) business and one customer, the customer does have a lot more 'say' than if they were in tesco.

OK, yes I agree with Hecate but was trying to be polite; I jave serious concerns about his state of mind. Sounds like he is being preyed on by a leech

The arangement was he would get a bit of money if it sold dh was not going to make any formal agreement etc or be paid before hand as far as i understand.

I agree with Hecate. Is your DH okay to be running a business? What you've described isn't good commercial sense at all. If you're relying on him for the family income I'd be really worried if I were you.

dh has never even met this guy he lives hundreds of miles away and all the conversations they have online plus any emails get forwarded to my address (since i used to do organization etc for him it was easier to do that) i really dont see what or why dh would feel he had to do things for him.
He didnt go ahead with the idea because i told him it would endanger our relationship - probably the only time in 12 years i have ever thought let alone said that.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that Stealth I have a small business, as does my husband, and we would both rather say no to a customer than to have them dictate to us terms that were clearly exploitative.

If we were in a situation where a single customer was make or break for our businesses to the point where we allowed them to dicate to us like that, then we would have gone very wrong somewhere!

I'm not sure of the terminology - have a background in S/W development but not in selling as such. Your DH will have written some code (and yes, content management system is what it's called, with an integrated shopping basket - not 100% sure of that). There is a difference between then packaging this up and selling it to a number of different clients (which usually includes some development/customisation) and selling the code in completeness to another person for them to do as they like (there is a legal term, but I can't remember what it is). Intellectual property rights, maybe?

You need some advice, fast, and you need to kick your DH up the bottom. If he doesnt see how serious this is, I'd personally consider leaving him, rather than losing everything.

StealthPolarBear Sat 19-Nov-11 14:16:55
"OK, yes I agree with Hecate but was trying to be polite;"

oh. was I being rude?

Sorry about that if so, that was not my intention.

oh god no I agree Hecate. No one should allow themselves to be exploited. But most small companies have their cash cow, and that cash cow has quite a lot of say in what happens, as they know they will get the repeat business if they keep the cash cow happy. I do not include "sell your business and give me 90%" in that though - I was talking about reasonable/slightly unreasonable demands!