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I've experienced a situation and I'm interested in the legal side of it, although not after specific legal advice.

The situation is:

A person holds an account with a company in the United Kingdom, who's terms of payment when opening the account were: payment for services required within 60 days.

The company has now changed their terms such that payment is required immediately on payment.

The company provided notice of this change in the form of an A4 sheet pinned on the wall of their reception.

My questions are:

1) Would the A4 sheet be sufficient notice, or are there other legal requirements for a change in payment terms?

2) If there are additional requirements that they therefore did not follow, would a person be entitled to make payment under the old terms until the requirements are fulfilled?

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    This might depend on if they set your account up as a "credit account" or they just gave you 60 days to pay your bill. They can't retroactively change it (aka you are now overdue for something 30 days ago when the policy was 60 days), but if you don't have a credit account with them they should be able to change payment terms at will.
    – Ron Beyer
    Commented Nov 6, 2018 at 19:36
  • Ah, in this situation, I don't believe it was a credit account as such, so I guess they have less legal requirements.
    – Andy
    Commented Nov 6, 2018 at 19:42

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There are two possible ways this arrangement would work:

  1. The business’ terms of payment were 60 days and now the are Cash on Delivery. As each transaction is a seperate contract, they can set the terms on each however they like.
  2. You have credit contract with the business independent of the substantive transactions. These are common in B2B relationships but unusual in B2C. If so they can only change the terms or cancel it by agreement or in accordance with its terms.
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  • If each transaction is a separate contract, then the notification would be in each individual contract, not just a piece of paper behind the reception desk.
    – David Thornley
    Commented Nov 6, 2018 at 20:46
  • @DavidThornley The contract is probably undocumented - the vet performs the service, the client pays the bill then and there. the purpose of the notice is simply to inform existing clients that the previous arrangement of 60 days is no longer happening - it is a courtesy, not a legal statement.
    – Dale M ♦
    Commented Nov 7, 2018 at 4:21

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