There's a long established legal principle that if you don't pay a workman he can place a lien on your property, which may even result in it being sold at auction. You can also be charged with theft of services, a real crime for which you go to jail.
If your new client is worried he might go to jail should he be committing felonies, that is also a concern.
We only know one side of the story. It could be that they added a whole bunch of extra charges that weren't in the contract, and when the client balked, did this as blackmail. Or maybe the work was of horrible quality. Who knows? I don't want to work with people that could potentially go nuclear on me over a legitimate dispute.
On the other hand, I'd have no trouble working with someone that has a history of suing clients that don't pay up. Or even someone who point blank told me he'd sue me if I didn't pay up (although I'd consider it mildly offensive). Since I have no intention of doing something that'll make me lose a court case, I don't fear getting sued.
Loose cannons, on the other hand, I do fear, which these guys clearly are. Even if they're in the right, this time.
I now believe that I should have made a lot of noise when someone tried to scam me in this way, and should have spent less time worrying about my reputation. I'm still not sure I should have gone as far as shutting down the (online-only) businesses which I still had passwords to, but I no longer view that as beyond the pale, as I did then.
[Edit: Although, in this case, iwwr's comment suggests it was the developer who was shady.]
That's right, and you can go in endless circles second guessing which party was in the right. If you decide that it was wrong to take the work back, you're just siding with the client. It's not hard to imagine them having done something equally drastic that we don't know about.
In many cases, contracting is effectively lawless and the stakes can be arbitrarily high. There aren't many actions I would categorically rule as out of bounds.
Keep in mind that there are people out there who are utter wrecking balls. They do nothing but damage to everyone they work with, and sometimes to themselves as well. The "professionalism" of their victims is what allows them to keep going.
Man, it's tiring just thinking about her drama.
You don't even know the guy. They could be an incredible developer and you wouldn't work with them because they'll screw you over if you screw them over first?
Sound logic.
1) The only thing we know about the guy is that he screwed the client over. The client may or may not have deserved it. Likely deserved it, if you prefer.
2) I don't want to work with him on the chance that the client didn't deserve it, and he'll screw me over when I don't deserve it.
Honestly, I don't see what's controversial about that. It's a massive red flag. Of course knowing more about the guy, or his situation, might change my mind. But that's true of any candidate.
(Note that I realise he's replied to the thread here now - I'm just trying to explain the thinking in my last post.)
Not heard of this before - is this a US thing?
While I've never heard of a house going to auction because of unpaid bills (though I'm sure it has happened), it's exceedingly common for vehicles, equipment, etc to be claimed by someone who was working on them. A very common occurence is for a mechanic to dismantle a car to find out what's wrong, then to quote the cost of repairs to be either more than the person can afford, or more than the car is worth. At that point the customer sometimes refuses to pay even the amount of work done at that point. At which point the car sits in the yard for the alloted period of time, at which point the mechanic takes ownership and sells off what is left (or, sometimes, fixes it themselves and sells for a profit). Usually the mechanic also has the right to charge a storage fee, and to levy interest on the unpaid item to increase the size of the total lien. And it's normal for the mechanic to lose out badly, which is why some people require up-front payment to undergo speculative work to find the source of a problem that could be expensive. The same goes for electronic equipment- it will cost you $200 to even open up a camera to see what is wrong, which is why most get thrown in the bin when they stop working.
It was a good series of posts, either way.
Ultimately, I think I'd probably waste a couple hundred bucks and get professional legal counsel if I really wanted to be sure I knew all my practical modes of reprisal.
You may think future clients will see the righteousness of
your action [..]
It's not fun to make money arrangements with clients that work for both parties, but it's a vital part of running a business. For tech people, it's often neglected, because many of us just want to write code. On the bright side, it's really not that bad or uncomfortable once you become accustomed to it and have successfully navigated those waters a few times. If you are in the business of trading your time for money, then print out the last paragraph of patio11's post and meditate on it before you enter into each business arrangement.
Even if you had the legal right to remove your code, or stall the site, (I have no idea if one would. I assume it depends on contractual obligations) and even if you decided that was your only rational option, it would still be best to handle the matter tactfully.
A future client, even if they agree with your motives, probably won't agree with your self-righteous customer-service methods. That's not the kind of person most people want to deal with. Maybe I'm jaded, but my opinion is that, if your job/contracts require interaction with customers, then part of your pay is to compensate for having to gracefully handle the garbage those customers throw at you. That doesn't mean you just let people abuse you, but it does mean knowing your options, and calmly taking them, or, where you really have no pragmatic recourse, washing your hands and moving on. That's why I hate ever being in a financial position where I absolutely need the current client/contract/job to survive through the next week.
Just my two cents, though.
Come back to this post in two months if you don't buy this prediction: it is highly likely he doesn't get paid.
There are better ways to avoid nonpayment. Work with better customers - reputation works both ways. Get references if required. For projects of nontrivial length, agree to milestones and bill on successful completion. Delivery of functional code should practically always be a milestone, which would eliminate most of the downside risk here. Charge a premium, both to scare away bad clients and to cover the numerous sources of risk to your ability to pay rent, of which total refusal to pay is only one.