A little advice please - trade waste collection contracts

[Draugen]

I've recently arrived at a bit of a stalemate with my waste collections. I'll keep this brief:

- Due to security issues, we began having to lock the gate to our service yard overnight. We were instructed by the managing agents we were not to give a key to any third party, including my waste contracter.

- My bin collections were being done at 6:30am, a member of staff is not onsite to unlock the gate until 7am. As a result, the vehicles began turning up and leaving without picking up the waste, resulting in a build up.

- I informed the depot that as of now, there was not access to the site until 7am, they agreed to put my collections on a later route. This never happened, and we kept getting missed collections.

- As we were getting, on average, one collection per week when we should have had four, I had to cancel my direct debit with the provider to stop them taking the money from my account automatically. Due to my cancellation of this direct debit, they cancelled my service and sent me a letter stating that if a new DD mandate was not recieved, they would cancel my contract within seven days.

- As things stand, they are refusing to refund the charges for the missed collections, will not recommence my service until a new direct debit is set up and have said that despite their previous letter, they will not be cancelling my account.

I am now getting billed for their services, despite not having had a collection from them in nearly a month and can see no forthcoming resolution. I have had to get a new provider in to get my bins collected, so need out of my current contract.

Any advice?

 

[Geoff T]

Hi, sorry - been a bit distracted, hence the delay!

The key here is to look at the time frames involved...

Get your dates in order, with any supporting evidence, to quantify the amount of your claim (I'll come back to this!*)

1. When did you change the opening times?
2. When was the previous supplier informed and asked to change to a later collection time?
3. How long was it between your telling them, and then cancelling the direct debit?

The point here is that you need to show "reasonableness" - it is the corner-stone of the legal system! If you can show that you gave them reasonable warning to change the collection time before cancelling the direct debit, you've got nothing to worry about.

4. Have 7 days passed from the date of the letter? Have you not given them any reason to continue the contract? negative - any other letter from the claimant? If nothing from them or you, the contract can be considered as cancelled anyway as they said they would do so, therefore any invoices after that date are invalid and can be ignored. (check contract for any term about "cancellation in default"!)

As long as you're claiming for a refund after the date from which you requested a later collection, there shouldn't be a problem, before that you'll have to write off.

Here's the key...if you ignore failed collections before the supplier was given notice of the change required to the terms of the contract, then I think you have a "reasonable" case for cancelling the contract due to the supplier's breach of contract, and claiming damages. You asked them to change the collection time, and they failed to so.

My immediate advice would be to write to them, accepting their "notice of contract cancellation - being actioned seven days from the date of their letter of [date] - and requiring immediate cancellation of all invoices raised after that date".

*I'd then also tell them that I required a refund of (approx 75%) of payments made between [date the change to collection time was made] and [date of their letter], just to be clever add interest to the payments, from the dates made!

Then just wait for the reply - but if they call refuse point blank to pay!

Regards
Geoff

 

[Draugen]

Sorry for not thanking you sooner for this.

A stern letter was sent to them and as of yet, I have had no response. They have however removed my bins and have stopped sending me invoices. I think it's probably safe to call that a result!

Many thanks for your advice.

 

[Geoff T]

cool!

but keep it all...these things have a way of coming out of the cupboard long after you though it was all sorted!

you're welcome! get in touch if they surface again!...could be months...

 

[Draugen]

these things have a way of coming out of the cupboard long after you though it was all sorted

You're not wrong there!

A few weeks back, I received a letter acknowledging that they had cancelled my contract effective 21 May 2009. I had a phone call yesterday however, informing me that they intend to take court action to recover money owed. Despite cashing the cheque I sent them as "full and final payment", they have now decided I owe them the full amount for the period where my account was on "stop". This was the couple of weeks after they had stopped collecting my bins, where I had to cancel my direct debit with them to stop them taking money from me.

They have credited my account for the missed collections before the direct debit was cancelled, but maintain that I must pay for the period in which no direct debit was active.

And on it goes...

 

[Draugen]

OK, I now have a "final demand" letter. I shall lay out some quick and simple facts if anyone would care to offer any advice:

- I sent a cheque to the prividor as "full and final payment" which they cashed and then acknowledged my contract had been cancelled. They then credited all invoices that had been sent to me after the cancellation.

- They are now threatening court action to collect payment for the period in which I had cancelled my direct debit with them due to their not collecting my bins. They had not collected my bins for several weeks, therefore I cancelled the direct debit to stop them taking money for their breach of contract. They now claim this is breach of contract on my part.

- The weeks where they did not collect my bins prior to my cancellation of their direct debit have now been credited. However, the period in which the direct debit was not active they are claiming I owe them the full amount for the service.


My personal line on this is that yes, I breached the contract by not having an active direct debit. However, they have admitted breaching the contract first by not collecting the bins (hence the credits) this admission and these credits only came about after I had cancelled the direct debit. In conculsion from my point of view, we were both in breach of contract however my breach was only caused as a result of theirs.

 

[travelspirit]

For trade waste, try ASH waste services. I had a bill cut from £11000 down to £4500, with four times more bin space.

 

[Geoff T]

Draugen,

sincere apologies, I've only just spotted that this one came out of the woodwork again!

What's the amount on the final demand? (PM me if you'd rather not post in open forum).

Can I assume you kept all of the paperwork, like I suggested?

What happened when you got that call? Did you tell them you disputed the amount claimed?

(Sorry - but it's a personal thing - I can't bring myself to use the word "debt", as it's not one...not in the true sense of the word)

Can you scan and email the documents?

regards, and apologies once again