When a client contracts you for work, you may not have sufficient staff, time or knowledge to carry out every single part of the job. You may, therefore, bring in subcontractors to help you.
What then if something goes wrong? Can you just blame it on the subcontractor and tell the client to take it up with them?
The buck probably stops with you
If a client signs a contract with you, then it’s you that they can and probably will seek to hold you responsible if something is amiss. The fact that you used a subcontractor is usually not their problem as far as the law is concerned. If it’s your signature on the contract then it’s your responsibility to resolve the situation.
That doesn’t mean you need to pay it all out of your own pocket
Just as you agreed to provide certain services to your client, your subcontractor agreed to provide specific work to you. Hopefully, you have a written contract agreement clearly stating what that entails, but if not a verbal contract may still be sufficient.
So, if your client is asking you to remedy a situation you in turn can ask your subcontractor to remedy the situation.
Quite how you sort things out will depend. You might want to insist they come back in and redo the work. Or, if you have realized you can no longer trust them, you might need to hire someone you can trust and then seek reimbursement from the original subcontractor.
As with any legal issue, things are not always black and white, so it’s important to learn more about the legal standing of any choices you make before you proceed.
