What is the name of your state? California
Here is our situation,
My husband is a plumbing contractor. He has done 80-90% of the plumbing for a major supermarket in so cal for the past five years. It has been 98% of our income. He did not have the contract with them directly. A company in central CA did and handled the incoming calls passing on the majority of them to my husband. The company in C. CA does not have a contractors lic. nor did my husband for the first 3+ yrs he did the plumbing work. No independent contractor agreement exists on paper. (I cannot believe such a large corp. had unlicensed, uninsured doing work in there store! No wonder their earnings are way down, they need a "safe"er "way" of doing business
) Anyway, we would bill this c. CA company and they would bill the grocer. A couple of weeks ago, this grocer decided the middle man was charging too much and refused to pay. They owe us for two and a half months of work. We would like to get the contract with the grocer directly, so we have yet to start any sort of action against them for the monies owed us as sub-contractors. I am now just trying to think ahead a little. When and if we find that this grocer will not be using our company for its plumbing needs (which is quite likely because the middle man may have tried to blame my husband for the billing issues, big lie) I will need to go after this grocer for payment. I want to avoid court, badly so I am wondering about tactics I might use when the time comes to write them. I have been doing a little research about contractor law (apparently dear husband was sleeping through that part of contractor school) and I have found that some of the way this business relationship was handled may constitute an employee relationship rather than that of an independent contractor. Albeit, he cases I have read about that were successful were all dealing with white collar industries, but many (not all) things I have read about the IRS standards for determining employee status apply to my husband. Is this a reasonable issue to bring up in any letter I may have to fire off to the grocer or will their legal department laugh at the suggestion he may have been an employee and they may be liable for big $$$ in back taxes overtime benefits etc. I don't really have the intention of seeking these things in court, we just want our money, but I am trying to think of things I can include in my request for payment that may hurry things and make for a convincing payment demand. What opinions do you have? If there is any other details you need let me know.
Here is our situation,
My husband is a plumbing contractor. He has done 80-90% of the plumbing for a major supermarket in so cal for the past five years. It has been 98% of our income. He did not have the contract with them directly. A company in central CA did and handled the incoming calls passing on the majority of them to my husband. The company in C. CA does not have a contractors lic. nor did my husband for the first 3+ yrs he did the plumbing work. No independent contractor agreement exists on paper. (I cannot believe such a large corp. had unlicensed, uninsured doing work in there store! No wonder their earnings are way down, they need a "safe"er "way" of doing business
) Anyway, we would bill this c. CA company and they would bill the grocer. A couple of weeks ago, this grocer decided the middle man was charging too much and refused to pay. They owe us for two and a half months of work. We would like to get the contract with the grocer directly, so we have yet to start any sort of action against them for the monies owed us as sub-contractors. I am now just trying to think ahead a little. When and if we find that this grocer will not be using our company for its plumbing needs (which is quite likely because the middle man may have tried to blame my husband for the billing issues, big lie) I will need to go after this grocer for payment. I want to avoid court, badly so I am wondering about tactics I might use when the time comes to write them. I have been doing a little research about contractor law (apparently dear husband was sleeping through that part of contractor school) and I have found that some of the way this business relationship was handled may constitute an employee relationship rather than that of an independent contractor. Albeit, he cases I have read about that were successful were all dealing with white collar industries, but many (not all) things I have read about the IRS standards for determining employee status apply to my husband. Is this a reasonable issue to bring up in any letter I may have to fire off to the grocer or will their legal department laugh at the suggestion he may have been an employee and they may be liable for big $$$ in back taxes overtime benefits etc. I don't really have the intention of seeking these things in court, we just want our money, but I am trying to think of things I can include in my request for payment that may hurry things and make for a convincing payment demand. What opinions do you have? If there is any other details you need let me know.