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Insight · Reducing risk

Credit checking the firm above you,
free, in twenty minutes.

Everything you need is public and none of it costs anything. Filing history, charges, director record, county court judgments, and the payment data large firms are now compelled to publish, including what they do with retention.

Published ·6 min read·Written by Unibuild

Five free public sources answer most of the question: Companies House filing history and accounts, the register of charges, the director's other appointments, the county court judgment register, and the payment practices data large firms are legally required to publish. Together they take about twenty minutes and tell you more about whether you will be paid than any credit score does.

Why the score is not the answer

A credit score is a single number produced by a model, and it is backward looking. It tells you what a firm's accounts looked like at a date that may be nine months ago, weighted by an algorithm you cannot see. It is useful. It is not what you are actually asking.

What you are asking is narrower and more practical: if I do £180,000 of work for this company over the next seven months, will I be paid, and how long will I wait. The sources below answer that question directly, and the last one answers it in the firm's own published words.

One. Companies House, and reading it properly

The register is free and the filing history is the part that matters more than the accounts themselves.

  • Are the accounts late? A firm that has filed on time for six years and is now overdue has usually had a conversation with its auditors that did not go well. Late filing is one of the earliest public signals there is.
  • Has the accounting reference date moved? Extending a year end pushes back the filing deadline. Once is administrative. Twice in three years is somebody buying time.
  • What do the accounts show? Small company filings are thin, but net assets, cash and creditor balances are usually there. Net liabilities on the last balance sheet is not automatically fatal in construction, and it is a thing to ask about rather than ignore.
  • Is there a pattern of resignations? A finance director leaving shortly before a late filing is a sequence worth noticing.

Two. The register of charges

Every fixed and floating charge over the company's assets is on the public record, with the date it was created and whether it has been satisfied. Read it as a timeline rather than a list.

A long-standing bank debenture is ordinary. A cluster of new charges in the last eighteen months, particularly to invoice discounters or short-term lenders, tells you the company has been raising money against its receivables, and that your application sits behind somebody with security over it. That is exactly the position you want to know about before you commit resource, not after.

A firm's borrowing is public, dated, and free to read. Almost nobody in the supply chain looks at it before signing an order.

Three. The people, not just the company

Directors are searchable across all their appointments. What you are looking for is a history of dissolved or liquidated companies in the same trade, particularly a sequence of them, and particularly where a new company was incorporated shortly before an old one failed.

Plenty of good contractors have a failed company behind them; construction is cyclical and one bad job can take a decent business down. A pattern of three is not bad luck.

Four. County court judgments

The Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines is searchable for a small fee per search, and a judgment against a company means somebody sued it for a debt and won. In construction that usually means a subcontractor, which makes it the most directly relevant signal on this list: it is a supplier in your position who was not paid and went to court about it.

Look at the number, the dates and whether they were satisfied. One old satisfied judgment is noise. Three unsatisfied judgments in eighteen months is the answer to your question.

Five. The payment data they are compelled to publish

This is the one almost nobody uses, and for a construction subcontractor it is the most useful source on the list.

Large UK companies and LLPs have had to report on their payment practices and performance since 2017, under regulations made under the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015. A business qualifies where it meets at least two of three thresholds, broadly turnover over £36m, balance sheet total over £18m and more than 250 employees, on both of its last two balance sheet dates. Reports are filed twice a year and published on a free government service that anybody can search by company name.

What you get is not an opinion. It is the company's own filed figures: its standard payment terms, the average number of days it actually took to pay, the proportion of invoices paid within 30 days, within 31 to 60, and beyond 60, and the proportion paid later than the agreed terms. Publishing false or misleading information is a criminal offence for the company and its directors, which is a considerably stronger incentive to accuracy than a sales call.

And since the Reporting on Payment Practices and Performance (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2024, in force from 1 March 2025 and applying to financial years beginning on or after 1 April 2025, qualifying businesses must also report on retention in their construction contracts: whether their contracts include retention clauses at all, the standard rate applied, the procedure for releasing it, and the contract value threshold below which no retention is taken.

Read that in the context of everything else on this site. A main contractor's own published statement of what it does with retention, and how long it actually takes to pay, is available before you tender, for nothing, from the firm itself. If the filed figures say an average of 61 days against stated terms of 30, you have not been told a rumour. You have read their return.

Turning five sources into a decision

None of this produces a yes or a no. It produces a shape, and the shape usually falls into one of three.

  • Clean. Accounts on time, no new charges, no judgments, payment data close to stated terms. Proceed normally.
  • Mixed. One signal out of place, most often slow payment against terms. Proceed, but price the delay in and take the contract terms seriously: this is when a retention cap, a shorter defects period or a payment schedule you have actually read is worth negotiating.
  • Poor. Two or more signals together, particularly late accounts plus new charges plus judgments. That is a firm funding itself on its supply chain. If you take the work at all, limit the exposure, keep applications small and current, and do not let the balance build.

The most useful discipline is not the check itself. It is doing it before the order rather than during the argument, and repeating it on your largest client once a year, because the answer changes.

Where this touches the platform

Unibuild does not credit check anybody and does not connect to Companies House. What it holds is the other half of the same question: your own exposure. Outstanding application value is bucketed into current, thirty, sixty, ninety and one hundred and twenty plus days against the manager responsible, so how much sits with one client and how old it is are visible without assembling anything. On the subcontract side, orders carry their terms and the insurance position is shown against the firm before you instruct them again. The public record tells you what a company is; your own ledger tells you what it owes you and for how long, and the decision needs both.

Subcontractor management Cost control For directors The construction cash gap

Where to start, on Monday

Take the client you have the most money outstanding with and run all five checks on them. Twenty minutes. Most firms find nothing, which is worth knowing, and a meaningful minority find something they would have wanted to know six months ago.

Then look at the payment practices data for the three main contractors you work for most. Comparing their published average days to pay against what they told you at tender is a short exercise that changes how you price at least one of them.

Asked most often

The follow-up questions.

What to do when the firm above you fails anyway is in when the contractor above you will not pay.

How do I check if a construction company is financially stable?+
Five free public sources answer most of it: Companies House filing history and accounts, the register of charges, the director's other appointments, the county court judgment register, and the payment practices data that large companies must publish. Together they take about twenty minutes and tell you more about whether you will be paid than a credit score does.
Can I find out how long a company takes to pay its suppliers?+
Yes, if it is large enough to qualify for payment practices reporting, broadly meeting two of three thresholds of turnover over £36m, balance sheet total over £18m and more than 250 employees. Qualifying businesses file twice a year and the reports are published on a free searchable government service. They state standard terms, average days taken to pay, and the proportions paid within 30, 31 to 60 and over 60 days.
Do main contractors have to publish their retention policy?+
Qualifying large businesses do. The Reporting on Payment Practices and Performance (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2024, in force 1 March 2025 and applying to financial years beginning on or after 1 April 2025, require reporting on retention in construction contracts: whether contracts include retention clauses, the standard rate, the release procedure, and the contract value threshold below which no retention applies.
What are the warning signs a contractor is in financial trouble?+
Accounts filed late after years of filing on time, a repeatedly extended accounting reference date, a cluster of new charges registered in the last eighteen months especially to invoice discounters, unsatisfied county court judgments, a finance director resigning shortly before a late filing, and published payment data showing an average well beyond stated terms. Any one is a question. Two or more together is an answer.
Is a floating charge a bad sign?+
Not on its own. A long-standing bank debenture is ordinary commercial borrowing. What matters is the timeline: several new charges created recently, particularly to invoice discounters or short-term lenders, indicates the company has been raising money against its receivables, which means your application sits behind somebody holding security over it.
Should I refuse work from a firm that fails these checks?+
Not necessarily. The checks produce a shape rather than a verdict. Where signals are mixed, the sensible response is to price the delay in and negotiate contract terms seriously, particularly retention. Where two or more signals appear together, limit the exposure: take smaller packages, keep applications current, and do not let the outstanding balance build.
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