Getting paid
Getting paid, and the notices
Getting paid, and the notices
that decide it.
Ten articles on what the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 gives a subcontractor: a right to be paid on a fixed timetable, and remedies for when that timetable is missed.
10 articles
Getting paid, in one place.
Almost every payment dispute in UK construction turns on a date rather than on the work. The Act fixes a due date, a period in which the paying party must serve a payment notice, a deadline for a pay less notice, and a final date for payment. Miss the pay less window and the notified sum becomes payable in full, whatever anybody later argues the work was worth.
That is why these 10 articles are mostly about paperwork and deadlines rather than about workmanship. If you want the dates for a specific valuation, the payment date calculator works them out from one date and your contract periods.
Daywork sheets: getting them signed and paidA daywork sheet is the record of instructed work nobody could price in advance. What it should hold, what the signature agrees to, how daywork rates are built, and how it reaches the valuation intact.Read it →
An application for payment that does not come back rejectedFour reasons account for most rejections, and none of them is the price. What the document has to contain, what has to sit behind it, and the date that matters more than the total.Read it →
Getting paid for variations you were told to get on withThe entitlement is rarely the problem. The evidence is. What stands up when the instruction was verbal, and the one email that changes the argument.Read it →
When a missing notice hands you the moneyAn adjudication that asks nothing about what the work was worth, only whether the notices were served. What it wins, and the second adjudication that usually follows it.Read it →
Stopping work for non-payment, without breaching your contractA statutory right with narrow conditions and real leverage. What has to be true before you can use it, what the notice must say, and what walking off without one costs.Read it →
Charging interest on a late payment, and the sums nobody claimsStatutory interest runs at eight per cent above base, and a fixed compensation sum sits on top of it that almost nobody asks for. Both are automatic entitlements rather than favours.Read it →
What the Construction Act actually gives youSix rights that apply whether or not your contract mentions them, and whether or not anything was ever signed. What each one is, and how far it reaches.Read it →
When the contractor above you will not payThe remedies run in a fixed order and each one costs more than the last. What to do first, what every step is worth, and the rung most disputes never get past.Read it →Pay less notices, and the timetable behind themFour dates govern every interim payment in UK construction, and statute sets them rather than goodwill. What each one is, and what a late notice costs.Read it →
Pay when paid, and why it does not bind youMaking your money conditional on somebody else being paid has been ineffective in UK construction since 1998. The clause is still written, and still quoted down the phone.Read it →Other subjects
Site servicesThe three services a site cannot open without, what each one costs to put in, and the compliance estate that sits behind them once it is running.3 articlesGetting paidTen articles on what the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 gives a subcontractor: a right to be paid on a fixed timetable, and remedies for when that timetable is missed.10 articlesCommercialEleven articles on the commercial side of a contracting business: what belongs in a price, what routinely gets left out of one, and where the margin goes between winning a job and closing the final account.11 articlesHealth and safety13 articles on what the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 and RIDDOR require, who holds each duty, and what an inspector asks to see first.13 articlesTax and CISSeven articles on the two tax regimes that touch almost every construction payment made in the UK, and the deadlines that carry an automatic penalty when they slip.7 articlesChoosing softwareTwelve articles written for the person who has to make the decision rather than the person selling into it, including what the money goes on, what the support arrangement is really worth, and where the systems you already run reach their limit.12 articlesWinning workThree articles on the paperwork that decides whether you are allowed to price a job at all, which is a different problem from pricing it well.3 articlesReducing riskSix articles on spotting a main contractor in difficulty early enough to act on it, and on what can still be recovered once it is too late to.6 articlesSubcontractorsFinding them, checking them, and paying them without an argument about what the invoice should have said.3 articlesPlant and assetsPlant and stock cost money in the same quiet ways: kit nobody can find, materials bought twice, a delivery never checked against the order, hire nobody stopped, and an examination date nobody was watching.6 articles
Next step
The payment position, current to the hour.
Ten articles of deadlines come down to one question asked under pressure: what was applied for, when, and what has been received against it. Unibuild holds each application against the project with its own date, the receipts against it and the retention withheld.