In summary we have a 12 month agreement to build and host an e-commence site for a client which expires on the 13th October. The client commissioned further work earlier this year and is now threatening to sue for breach of contract as we did not purchase
equipment paid for. This was not intentional but due to our bank withdrawing our overdraft. The client had, however, been unable/unwilling to populate the site with their products in the agreed timescale and had effectively put the project on hold for two
months. This was without our agreement and meant that they had also put on hold payment of the second half of the agreed programming charge - by the time they gave us the go ahead to purchase the equipment, the programming had been completed for 2 months -
the two debts are within £50 of each other. We believe that they plan to submit a claim in the small claims court before the hosting agreement expires. We haven’t as yet invoiced for the hosting but have asked if they wish us to - they have not responded.
It is an extremely complex site. Hosting support and licenses which are all due come to considerably more than the cost of the equipment but they are not prepared to negotiate. We would like to know if we should invoice anyway, we assume we should, and if
they don’t pay whether that affects their claim and whether we have to pay to keep the site live.