I had a client who hired me to build an online ordering system. It was a fairly small contract. $3000. I designed the interface according to his specs, he approved them, I handed the design off to my database programmer to build the database. My programmer said it would take him about 3 or 4 weeks to get it done. I told the client the beta would be ready for him to review in 3 to 4 weeks. 8 weeks later, my programmer was still not done. He’d been delayed for various reasons. He was close, though. I assured my client that the beta was imminent. The ordering system was literally about 95% done at this point. I attempted to explain this to him, even walked him through it, but he didn’t believe me. Even though he was looking right at it.

Two days later he cancelled the contract and demanded a refund of the money he’d already paid, which amounted to $2000 – a $1000 deposit, and another $1000 after he approved the interface design.

Does he have the right to demand a refund?