Where’s my money? What to do if you’re not being paid on time

The magazine I wrote about in my previous blog has now gone into administration leaving me over £600 out of pocket. This is of course hugely disappointing and something that I can ill afford financially. On top of this is the loss of what was a fantastic music magazine, contained well-informed, hype-free articles that, while being aware of trends, didn’t pander to them and had fantastic, professional staff.

Barring the Managing Director of course who I’m still yet to hear one nice word said about (most people warrant a ‘Nah, he’s alright’ from someone but not this bloke). Had he cared even five per cent as much as his staff, this may not have happened. Now they’re all out of jobs and there is a huge gaggle of unpaid freelances, who have helped him sell his magazine, out of work and out of pocket.

And just to reinforce what a one-sided ass UK company law is, he’s already set up another company (having saved one of his three magazines) which should buy him another few years of being an MD and not paying his writers. So he’s fine thankyouverymuch.

So, yes, I should have seen this coming from the lack of response to emails, the mounting unpaid invoices and ignored red statements I sent. And, yes, I should have acted sooner to take the matter to the small claims court. But I didn’t and now I’m poorer for it so what can you do if you find yourself in a similar situation?

How to get the money you’re owed:

1. Call, call and call again. Emails are easily ignored so get on the phone to the person responsible for paying you. Yes, you may come across as a pain in the arse to the accounts department but this is work that you have done and have not been paid for. If you were in a full-time position would you accept your boss not paying you your monthly salary? Of course not, and let’s not forget that the ebb and flow of money as a freelance makes your finances uncertain enough. Even if you’re only owed the money for a single invoice, chase it as soon as payment becomes overdue.

2. Speak to the editor. You may be locked away in your bedroom-based freelance ‘office’ but more often than not the person that commissions you shares the same office as, and hopefully commands some respect from, the person responsible for paying you. A word from them could speed up payment of your hard-earned fee and ensure you can pay the bills that month.

3. Stick religiously to payment terms. Under UK law you are entitled to payment within 30 days. Stay on top of this as you don’t want to create the impression that you’re one of the writers that’s happy to wait for payment. You did the work, you want your money! Email a statement of outstanding fees immediately (attaching relevant invoices) and follow up with a phone call. Most clients you work for will respect this nudge and pay immediately. Under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, you can also charge 12 per cent PA on any invoices that are not paid within the 30 day period.

4. Withhold copy. You may fear that this will upset the editor of the magazine you are writing for but any editor worth their salt should understand that you work hard and deserve to be paid on time for your efforts. Without copy, there is no magazine; a fact that should resonate with the person responsible for paying your wages as the magazine also pays theirs. Call the editor to let them know that this is what you have been forced to do – some editors have little or no idea that their writers are not being paid so if you fail to tell them why you’re not sending your copy through, you’ll just look tardy and unprofessional.

5. Send a Letter Before Action (LBA). The clue is in the name. This is the first step towards starting court action to get the money you’re owed. The letter gives the company a fixed amount of time (usually 14 days) to respond before court action is instigated. See the links below for template letters or how to get a solicitor to send the letter for you on headed paper (this carries more weight and can cost as little as £2). 6. Court action*:

• Small claims court – once the LBA period has passed, then you can proceed with taking the company to court. This will initially cost you the court fees (which vary depending on the amount you’re claiming) but the defending company is liable to pay these if the case is settled in your favour. You are also able to charge the defending company interest on the money you are owed and claim this back.
• Winding up petition – any court action is risky if you want to keep the client but the chances are if you have to go to these lengths you’re probably just interested in getting your money back. You can apply for a winding up petition against a company which basically involves saying that if the company cannot pay its debts then it should no longer be trading. More information on winding up can be found here: http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?itemId=1073791109&type=RESOURCES

*IMPORTANT: Before taking court action, check to see if the company has already been placed in administration (see Companies House). If you begin court action while the company is going through this process, you may end up being liable for the court fees that you would normally reclaim as part of the settlement.

7. Contact the administrators. If the worst comes to worst and the company has been placed in administration (you can check this on the Companies House website) then you should contact the administrator (details also on Companies House) so that they can list you as one of the creditors. Be aware that your claim will come quite near the bottom of the list below those with larger claims such as suppliers. You may end up getting a token percentage of what you’re owed (say a penny for every pound you’re owed) and may well end up with nothing but if the administrator doesn’t know you are owed money then they cannot account for you when it comes to handing out the money raised from selling the company’s assets.

Related links:

Companies House: http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/

How To Get Paid On Time article on journalism.co.uk: http://www.journalism.co.uk/news-freelance/how-to-get-paid-on-time/s12/a51656/

Template letters and advice: http://www.justclaim.co.uk/index.php?file=/procedures/index.page

Thomas Higgins solicitors: http://www.thomashiggins.com/

Winding up petitions explained: http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?itemId=1073791109&type=RESOURCES

NOTE: I AM NOT A SOLICITOR and have no legal training. The above guidelines relate to the UK and are just that: guidelines that should not be taken as legal advice. If you have any queries about any of the above or are considering taking a company to court, please contact a solicitor. This need not be expensive and there are companies, such as Thomas Higgins, that specialise in this area and can complete the whole process relatively inexpensively.

Originally posted on http://blog.ianroullier.com on 13 August 2011.

Writing for free: experience or exploitation? (Part two)

So, I stopped writing for the non-paying indie music magazine, whose cover stars became increasingly A-list as the ads became increasingly numerous. I decided that I deserved to be paid for the time and trouble I was taking interviewing, transcribing, writing, re-writing, editing, subbing and submitting (on time) my copy, so focussed my efforts and energies instead on magazines that rewarded their writers with something more tangible than prestige and pride (which are nice but don’t pay the rent).

Having built a portfolio by writing for a variety of websites – yes, for free, but magazines still retain a much better and more profitable business model than websites – I was extremely happy when I got my first offer of paid work from another magazine. It was only £20 for a short review, which I probably more than spent that night on travel to the event and alcohol, but it was a paid job – better than nothing, which is what the other magazine were offering for my labour.

This in-turn eventually led to being commissioned to write short interviews and then, a dream of mine for many years, full-blown features. I have to say I was ecstatic to finally receive payment for all of the hard work I was putting in. The problem was, it wasn’t that straightforward.

I interviewed musicians and wrote and submitted copy but getting paid for it was hard to say the least. The terms of each commission, which I naïvely accepted, were that payment would be made within 30 days of the issue going OFF sale. With lead times on magazines being around five weeks anyway, plus the four weeks the issue is ON sale, this equated to not being paid until over three months after the copy had been submitted.

Unfair? Yes. And, as I’ve since discovered, also illegal. Under UK law invoices must be paid within 30 days of being issued, otherwise interest is due (see here for more information from journalism.co.uk). More unfair though was the fact that even this three month rule was not respected by the owner of the magazine. The unpaid invoices mounted up until I was owed around £500 and then, the magazine folded. When I say folded, the magazine didn’t miss an issue, just merely carried on with the same name with the same Managing Director but under a different publishing house name – a bizarre, somewhat unfair quirk of British law. I lost the money but was assured by the MD that I would be recompensed by the editor giving me more work.

After much thought, and legal advice (there was no way I could get the money owed to me) I decided I would continue to write for them and the editor did put more work my way to make up for what I had lost.

The close working relationship I shared with the editor once more came into play when, once again, the publishing company went under (again, not an issue missed) and I was one of the few writers that the magazine paid in full to keep me on board. Lucky for me, my hard work and professionalism had been recognised enough by the editor to want to keep me. (Incidentally, the editor was always professional and produced a fantastic magazine - how do so many poor MDs get such great staff?!)

But once again, invoices have gradually piled up, the amount owed has spiralled upwards and my countless emails to the MD have gone unanswered. Now I find myself in the position of having to take one of my clients to court for unpaid invoices. And it is this that inspired my change of heart: the indie magazine I once wrote for were open about their non-payment of writers, which, while unfair for a popular, well-known publication, is surely more honourable than offering money and then not paying it?

I noticed recently that the indie magazine had placed (no doubt very expensive) ads above every urinal in men’s toilets at major train stations across London. But while they may still be taking the piss, at least they’re being honest about it.

Originally posted on http://blog.ianroullier.com on 22 July 2011.

Writing for free: experience or exploitation?

This was going to be a blog entry criticising a particular indie music magazine. One that doesn't, and has never, paid any of its writers. But then something happened that gave me a change of heart. First of all though, allow me to explain some of the background.

At the start the full-time editorial staff of this magazine, which you can find at WH Smith and 'all good newsagents', were earning next to nothing and had to fund themselves through other jobs. So if they weren't in a position to pay themselves, they certainly wouldn't be able to pay anyone else. With this in mind, I happily kept writing for the magazine, content in the knowledge that they needed to increase their brand and circulation etc.

But as the big company ads from companies like Top Man, Firetrap and L'Oreal pushed the front cover and contents page further and further apart and the sponsorship deals, branding stages at festivals and an endless stream of gigs and club nights, increased, I became certain that they must now have some money coming in. I asked repeatedly when writers were going to be paid but as those requests for payment were met with, 'Not yet', I realised I was now being taken for a ride.

What the magazine's owners were relying on was the fact that there would always be a pool of up and coming, inexperienced music journalists that they could draw upon; writers that would write for pride and prestige and to increase their portfolio rather than for money (see the recent UK launch of the Huffington Post for a vaguely similar scenario). As a start-up magazine, this was acceptable but as a successful, ad-filled, glossy and, it must be said, well-respected and recognised publication, I felt their business model was built purely upon exploitation so I stopped writing for them.

But while this blog entry was going to be an acerbic rant against the magazine in question – who I must add are not alone in filling their pages with unpaid copy from hard-working journalists – I realised that perhaps they weren't that bad after all.

So, why the change of heart? I'll explain tomorrow.

Originally posted on http://blog.ianroullier.com on 21 July 2011.