Construction payment has its own statutory regime. Before treating an unpaid application as an ordinary debt, it is worth checking whether you have a faster route than a court claim.
Construction payment has its own statutory regime, and it changes the advice substantially. Before treating an unpaid application as an ordinary debt, it is worth establishing whether the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 applies to the contract — because if it does, you may have a considerably faster route than a court claim.
Under the statutory payment regime a payer who fails to serve a valid payment notice or pay-less notice in time can become liable to pay the notified sum in full, whatever the merits of the underlying valuation. A very large number of construction payment disputes are won and lost on whether a notice was valid and on time, rather than on the quality of the work.
So the first thing we look at is not the invoice, it is the dates: what was applied for, when, what notice came back, and when.
A party to a construction contract generally has the right to refer a dispute to adjudication at any time, with a decision in a short statutory timetable. It is temporarily binding and enforceable, and for unpaid applications it is frequently faster and cheaper than litigation.
Adjudication is not a reserved legal activity — parties are commonly represented by consultants and surveyors as well as lawyers. It is a specialist field with its own tactics and hard deadlines, and where it is the right route we will say so plainly rather than sell you a letter.
Retention released late, or never released, is one of the most common debts in the sector and one of the least chased. The obstacles are usually practical: the release date depends on practical completion or the end of the defects period, and nobody has diarised it. Retention is a debt like any other once it falls due.
Where you have supplied materials rather than labour, a properly incorporated retention of title clause can matter enormously if the payer fails — provided the goods are still identifiable and have not been incorporated into the works, which in construction is frequently the sticking point.
For an unpaid application under a construction contract, very often yes — the timetable is short and the decision is enforceable. It is not always right, particularly on small sums where the cost of the adjudicator is disproportionate. It is a genuine assessment rather than a default.
Pay-when-paid clauses are largely ineffective in construction contracts by statute, so 'we have not been paid' is generally not an answer to your application. There are narrow exceptions, so the contract is worth reading — but do not accept it at face value.
Not necessarily. A pay-less notice must be valid, in time, and specify the basis of the sum. Notices that are late, unsigned, sent to the wrong address or silent on the basis of calculation are regularly found ineffective — and if the notice fails, the notified sum may be payable in full.
Then it is an ordinary debt that fell due two years ago, with statutory interest attached to it since. A simple contract debt stays enforceable for 6 years, so it is very likely still recoverable — and retention is money nobody expects you to chase, which is why so much of it is never paid.
The letter-before-action checklist, the interest and compensation rules, and the escalation ladder with what each step costs. One email, no sequence.
Tell us what you are owed and who owes it. You get back what the debt is actually worth once interest and compensation are added, what we would do first, and the fixed fee for doing it.