Verbal Agreements

[chrissa1]

Does a verbal agreement stand up in Court? Nothing written as to what the costs will be and at no point were we aware that having paid for this individual to travel to Dubai and Pakistan on business + expenses, he then charged us for his Day Time & £650.00 per day.
He is now claiming £18,000.00 for doing not, a very good job.

Any answers would be very welcome.

[ummmm]

They are hard to prove as it's one word against the other.

I had a verbal agreement with my Ex regarding the money in my house before I put him on the mortgage. He went against it when it came to selling and my solicitor said it could cost a lot in court fees and on the day it comes down to who the judge believes.

Deny any agreement.....£650 a day?? The judge wouldn't even earn that.

[scotman]

This looks very similar to question asked below

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Science/Question733173.html

[chrissa1]

Yes scotman, that was me. He has still got the camera and the case is due to be heard in November.

[scotman]

What is this person basing his claim on?

[dzug]

Yes a verbal agreement can stand up in court and is perfectly legal in most situations.

The problems are proving its existence (which you don't seem to dispute) and proving its terms (which you do). If the individual is a business consultant and has standard T&C and rates then they are likely to be upheld. If they are not then 'reasonable' terms will be imposed by the judge.

Having said that £650 a day plus expenses doesn't seem that OTT for a professional business consultant.

What did you THINK you were paying him to do? Did you make that clear to him?

[chrissa1]

He is basing his claim on the fact that we said we would pay him, (and have paid him £2500.00) for work that he did on equipment that was then taken out to Dubai & Pakistan. What was never made clear was that he was going to charge us for his time out there.
We, probably naively, thought that time out there would be beneficial to his small business, contactwise and in experience gained, and that paying for his trip was sufficient.
Any orders won through this trip would earn him further work too. The other person who went on the trip and had his flights and expenses paid was always working uder this premise, and has not invoiced us for his time away.