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apaproforce
Community Member

Termination of the contract with the client

Hello,
I need help deciding, I’m new to Upwork.
I have a client, a contract signed by the hour. I did all the work and handed him the documentation. He hasn't responded to my messages for a long time, I asked him "Is everything okay with the project I was working on?" Honestly, I don't like it when someone is so unavailable, so I would like to terminate that contract. First I would ask the client to terminate the contract, if he does not want I will terminate it because he has no more work for me, or he will not be there soon.
The reason why I would terminate the contract: I read on the support, that if the contract is open and not active, that it is badly expressed on my rating. I would not like to have a negative business due to an inactive contract, ie an irresponsible client.
Can you advise me what is best for me to do?
If you have additional questions, feel free to ask me.
Greetings,

9 REPLIES 9
wlyonsatl
Community Member

Srdjan K.,

 

It is no fun waiting for a delayed response from a client, but that is just the ways things are with some/many clients.

 

I recommend sending a quick note to the client once a week, at most. Once every two weeks would probably be sufficient.

 

After four weeks of no response, ask the client if there is any more work for you on the project in the near future.

 

If there is still no response after another two weeks, close the project yourself and send a note to the client telling him a) you've enjoyed working with him and b) you will be happy to re-start the project at his convenience. Part b) may not be true, but he needn't know that and it looks better if this or other future potential clients review your feedback.

 

Within that timeline, this "idle" project will not have a negative effect on your JSS and Upwork will take no notice of it. I regularly have contracts that sit idle for at least six weeks with no negative effect on my JSS (as far as I can tell, of course).

 

Good luck!

Will L.,

 

Thanks for your reply.
On September 22, 2021, I asked him if everything was OK with the project I was working on. He didn't answer anything to this.

I will then wait until the end of this month and terminate the contract.
Thank you for your time.

 

Best regards,

 

AleksandarD
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Srdjan,

 

When you close a contract that has earnings, the client is notified and will have 14 days to provide their feedback on the contract. If no feedback is provided on the contract by them, it will not have an impact on your score. While it's a good practice to close a contract where all the work has been completed and there are no plans to use it for future tasks, open contracts without recent activity do not affect JSS negatively.

 

Thank you.

~ Aleksandar
Upwork

Hello Aleksandar D.,

Thanks for the reply, this information means something to me.

Best regards,

 

This is an interesting discussion. I have a client that I closed the contract with yesterday as the work is complete. He informed me via messages that he does not plan to pay me the full amount even though I fulfilled the requirements. What is my recourse in this situation?

Thanks.

Tina

Tina,

 

The answer to your question depends on whether the contract was fixed price or hourly.


Tina P wrote:

This is an interesting discussion. I have a client that I closed the contract with yesterday as the work is complete. He informed me via messages that he does not plan to pay me the full amount even though I fulfilled the requirements. What is my recourse in this situation?

Thanks.

Tina


Your specific options depend on whether the contract is hourly or fixed-price and if the former, whether you used the UW tracker and used it as prescribed; why the client doesn't want to pay the full amount; how much money is at stake; the overall size of the contract (which weighs into how much of a ding the client could create on your JSS if he decided to be spiteful). All of that factors into your equation balancing time, energy, money. 

tlbp
Community Member


Srdjan K wrote:

...
The reason why I would terminate the contract: I read on the support, that if the contract is open and not active, that it is badly expressed on my rating. 


I believe this information is out of date. You might want to share a link to the location where you found it so the mods can take action to ensure that it is corrected. 

apaproforce
Community Member

Tonya P.,

I read that somewhere in these topics on the community `` End contract with non active clients`` and `` Long Term Inactive Contract``. 

 

I probably took that out of context. But I certainly don’t like having an open contract with a client who won’t give me a job in the future. Terminating a contract is good for me, so that other clients don't see a lot of open positions when they review your profile. This is just my opinion.

Best regards,

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