Saturday, February 18, 2012

Dealing with Non Payers

 Subscribers who pay for their alarm systems but stop paying for telephone or other communication pathways present an issue.  You advise that you are using a Contract, presumably for monitoring.  That Monitoring Contract or any Contract with the provision, clearly requires the subscriber to provide a communication pathway so that the system can communicate a signal.  The contract is equally clear that your recurring charges need to be paid even if no communication is maintained by the subscriber or if the police or fire department decide not the respond.  Your liability is another matter.
    If you put the AHJ on notice that you have installed and are monitoring a fire alarm system then you should notify the AHJ that monitoring is not possible.  Let your subscriber know that you are obligated, if not legally then morally, to notify the AHJ.
    Although you are not contractually obligated to provide notice to the subscriber that it is in breach of the contract by not providing communication it's a good idea.  A letter once in a while would be a good idea.  If the subscriber stops paying you, sue.

Thanks to Ken Kirschenbaum for this valuable information.
Visit www.alarmcontracts.com for more information.

1 comment:

  1. to keep my self covered I notify customer by certified mail and then AHJ by certified mail. When they still do not pay off bill and terminate them . In some cases AHJ has filed criminal charges against customers for not maintaining there systems when code and laws require it. Needless to say I lose a customer but do you really want to keep such a problem customer.

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