Is that Delayed Order a Breach of Contract?

When your business places an order with a vendor or supplier, you expect that order to be fulfilled. Money may already have exchanged hands, and you need the goods or services that you ordered.

It is clear that this contract has been breached if the vendor never fulfills their side of the contract and you don’t get what you paid for. But what if the fulfillment of that contract is merely delayed? If you get in touch with them and they tell you that they’re still going to fulfill it but that they are a bit late, do you have to accept that, or have they breached the deal?

A Delay Can Be a Breach of A Time-Sensitive Contract

It is certainly possible for this type of delay to count as a breach of their contract. You may suffer financial losses as a result. When the vendor agreed to that deal, they didn’t just agree to provide the goods or services. They agreed to do it on a specific schedule. That is part of their obligation.

For instance, maybe you were planning to sell those goods to your own customers for a special occasion. If the order isn’t fulfilled in time, the moment passes and you lose the sale. That can harm your reputation as a business owner, which can cause you to lose future sales. It is unfair to you to have a vendor simply ignore the completion date, and it could harm your company on numerous levels.

If you do get into a disagreement over a contract or you believe that one has been illegally broken, be sure you know about all of the steps you can take to find a remedy for your losses.