Qwerty1987

I believe the contract was as a freelancer yes, solicitor is maybe the best option but I really can't afford to pay a solicitor the considerable amount I assume they would request after the 1st meeting. With regards to ACAS, I've read speaking to an ombudsman, mediator, citizen's advice, business link or arbitratior relating to internet business would be a good alternative to a solicitor or small claims. Do you guys have any relevant experience of these?

Yeah I've sent them all the invoices, and I signed an employment contract when I first started performing SEO for them, but that's it.

Cheers for the reply cavking but I can't walk away with neither the website or the £5000, I need one of them otherwise I've lost £5000. I don't care what one I get either will do. I can send a letter from a solicitor for £5, how do I arrange that then?

I work part time for a local web design company performing SEO for some of their web design clients. I have not been paid since December last year and I am owed over £5000. At the same time I owe one of the directors of this web design company £4596 for designing a website for myself. Now the problem is this they have not updated my SEO wages although they owe me money even after accounting for my website costs of £4596 despite the fact I have sent them my invoices. Also the website they created for me is not finished, as I requested various things to be done 3 months ago yet they have not progressed at all since then. Also they have not transferred the website domain name or hosting to me despite the fact I asked for these things to be done last May and various times in between. As a further issue I did create a basic contract with the director to be a business partner with me for joint (50%) ownership of my website and 30% of all profits generated via the website but I terminated this contract in January this year which he accepted. I saw the fact he had no interest in helping me at all and just wanted to take as large a percentage of profits and ownership as possible so terminated the website business partnership. I sent the director an email last Friday explaining my frustrations and asking if the outstanding website tasks could be done this week and threatening small claims court action if not, he replied saying he will sort out timescales early this week for the work to be done but that was his only communication and it was 9 days ago, I’ve heard nothing since and nothing has been done. Ideally I would want back all the money I am owed and he can keep the website himself, although if that can’t happen I just want my website finished a.s.a.p. as it’s losing me money and causing me immense stress. I was fine paying £4596 for the website initially but I am very angry paying this high price now considering the length of time it is taking to complete, add to that the fact I know it is a copied website design from another site and we spent just the 10-15 hours customizing it. I have been given no contract regarding the website, no timescales and no communication on when it is even going to be finished. So I feel like I’ve been ripped off twice with the price and the poor service. I have also phoned him many many times over the course of the last 3 months but he has just palmed me off with stalling tactics again and again. I really cannot afford to go to a small claims court, so I need advice on what would be my best course of action from here? Hopefully you can assist me but if not could you direct me where I may be able to get further help? Also I have all my online correspondents to and from the company within my email account as evidence of the situation I have described above.

Wow 40+ hours well if that's true then that £4.5k quote sounds about right! I will be removing the forum and commerce so that's not an issue, and condensing the website to around 15-20 main webpages then internal webpages branching off of them.

Hey cheers for replying again, I understand what you're saying but I know for a fact the website did not take that many hours as the original design and layout was copied from a previous client's site, then I was there for all the time where they made my customisations I'd say it took around 20 hours tops. That's an issue aswell I have no contract, only the previous business partnership and website ownership contract which I terminated. I suppose I need to contact them for that first as you say, then I will at least have a contract that states deadlines and what i'm paying for.

Weren't sure if I should start a new thread for this but as it's related to the previous posts in this thread I've added it here. Am I right in thinking setting up Wordpress as an alternative CMS for the entire website above while retaining the layout and design of the site is at most a 1-2 hour job for a web developer? Also I'm sceptical that the website price I've been given of £4500 is a fair price, would you say that's good value? Finally what can I do to speed up the web developer to set-up Wordpress on the site asap, would I be best to go to a solicitor? As I'm finding it near impossible to get answers and tie them down to a time when it will get done. Also I am running low on funds as it is so I'm not sure a solicitor is the right avenue to go down.

Yeah cheers that's very important actually, although I'm an SEO myself so know the importance but for any lurkers very good advice thanks.

Ok I don't know enough to know how to modify the templates and keep the design and layout but I suppose I can just get a web developer to do that part for me. Cheers for all the help!

I need to change host and with that change Content Management System as right now I'm using theirs. Having looked around I'm very confident Wordpress, Drupal and the other top CMS will work great, even better than their CMS in-fact. If I change from their CMS to a suitable new one will I be able to retain my webpages and the actual visual design and layout of the website? I would ask this question to the business partner/web design company but as I say I'm on very bad terms with them because of the hassle they have caused me and they are ignoring my emails and calls. Unfortunately I'm pretty desperate here as until I get the website moved to a new host/CMS they are holding me to ransom and I'm losing money and sleep!

Do you guys think Wordpress would be fine for the features in my last post above then?

Well the current CMS the web design company have made has a page manager to add written content/links/images to about 10 different web pages that then have internal webpages I can also manage, a video manager to upload youtube videos to the site,FAQS manager and that's it I think. Most of my content is just written info and images/videos, I will add news feeds, widgets, social networking, forum and other more complicated things in future like javascript tools but I will pay a web developer or whatever for these once I'm ready.

Any tips? because as you can tell I know nothing about CMS, I was thinking about switching to Wordpress as I've heard that's a great versatile and FREE CMS. Would using Wordpress as a CMS be suitable for the website do you think?

I don't want to post the actual website as the web design company may find it but it is the then initials L.C.A (all 1 word no hyphens) then co.uk

I am currently using a web design company's custom bespoke CMS to manage and host my website. I would like to know how easy it is to change from their CMS to a new one, what are the steps and costs involved and how easy is it to achieve? A possible problem is the fact I want to also move my hosting away from the web design company's host aswell as their CMS and involve them in the process as little as possible as they have been extremely unreliable and amateur in all tasks involving my website up to now so I want rid of their host and CMS.