customer owing me money

[Ldnmum2015]

I am a self employed cleaner, a few months ago I inherited a customer from a house share, this customer then moved in with his girlfriend. They both decided they wanted a cleaner, he pays me one week and she pays the other. He is a highly valued customer to me as he pays on time and has always appreciated my work, but I have a real problem his girlfriend, she has never paid me on time, and I am constantly having to chase her for it, she quibbles about petty things, adds her own long list and tries to knock my time off, once she wanted to dock my time because she was ten mins late, I made it clear at the beginning when booking with her boyfriend that I have a minimum call out charge, which is 3 hours or £40, that I have other bookings to get to so can't afford to run late etc. If she was a customer on her own I would have dumped her, but her boyfriend has been a good long term customer, also I am not sure aware if he knows she keeps owing me.

It's so hard. I have a customer owing me £240 but not alot I can do apart from take it to small claims court I guess. Do you have a written contract?

Wow not as bad as that, £240 is terrible. She only owes £40 but is as always a few days late, and prob wont get it till end of week, I am about to send her the text I usually send to bad payers, raising my prices and introducing late payment fees, but I don't want to lose her boyfriend as a customer! I just find her so arrogant and disrespectful, she leaves me ridiculous lists then gives me stupid excuses, like she got my account number wrong, or she wasn't sure how much (this is when she was 10mins late, and I had to leave on time to get my train for my next booking) etc. I have rearranged my schedule to accommodate the booking, and can easily fill the space, just annoys me the way she treats me, gggrrrrrrr

I don't have a written contract, mainly verbal and through text messages. The text I usually send out is a generic price increase and reminder of late fee payments, as all my other customers know I am self employed, one man show, so they pay straight into my business account on the day, I rarely have to chase payment, usually when I do, I simply dump the customer and cut the lose, which is no more than a few hours pay, but because they pay alternately it is hard to enforce this

I would be tempted to contact them both and send the generic message politely stating you need to be paid on time etc. If he queries it just state honestly that on her weeks you aren't being but felt it right to contact them both as your contract is with them both. Hopefully he will then kick her arse so he doesn't risk loosing you. Value yourself. A good cleaner is hard to find and I wouldn't want to loose one because my partner was being stupid.

Also as it I a generic text to all my customers, I will have to send one to him, which will high light the fact she is a late payer, its not to fact that it I late, it us more the way having been begged to fit them in, she tries to change the rules to suit herself with no respect to the fact that I am a small business and have costs to recover. He on the other hand, has always been respectful and appreciative.

Thanks unicow, helps alot, I love cleaning and have had some great customers, its just people like her make me feel devalued!

Can you contact them both on the same text and say that you aren't sure if they want you to continue as you haven't been paid yet again, and that you are having to chase for payment every other week. If you don't receive the payment today you'll assume that is the case.

Also add that if they do want you to continue that they will need to pay for extra time for all the extras that are being requested. And that you can fit in an extra hour or two once every month/week/whatever.

Trust me good cleaners are very hard to find. There arrangement isn't your problem. They both live there every week after all.

Thanks wallywobbles, a very good point that is both of them, so have sent it too both. Quick update, she still hasn't paid by today, am due over today, but haven't confirmed so am just going to cut my loses and dump them both, not like it would be hard to fill the booking slot!