What do you need from us to answer the contra-charges already taken?
Your signed subcontract, the deduction schedule, the notices with proof of arrival, the records behind each item, and every valuation and payment notice to date.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
The answer
The subcontract comes first. It sets its own conditions for set-off, notice, timing and evidence, and a deduction that fails them may fall before anyone argues the merits. Send the schedule as the original spreadsheet if you can, so we can see how each line is made up. Send each notice as the email that actually carried it, timestamp intact. A deduction from an interim payment needs a valid notice given in time. Forward the emails around each item as the originals. A deduction with no complaint or notice to remedy behind it is part of the answer. Send the diaries, handover sheets, photographs and delivery tickets that show what was actually done. The run of valuations and notices shows any charge taken twice, or taken and never credited back when withdrawn. After that, we have one call on each significant item: what was done, what was agreed and what the site records show. If a Pay Less Notice has just landed, or a reply period or payment date runs out this week, say so first. We send a written challenge in your name within the period, reserving your position on every line, and the full triage follows.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
A roofing subcontractor wants a schedule of 14 deductions answered. One of them arrived in a Pay Less Notice whose reply period ends that week.
What happens
- We deal with the urgent line first. We send a written challenge in the subcontractor's name within the period, reserving its position on every line.
- The subcontractor sends the subcontract, the schedule and the emails that carried each notice, timestamps intact.
- The run of valuations and notices for the period shows one £2,200 skip charge taken in two separate months.
- One call with the site manager covers what happened on the four largest items and what the site records show.
The outcome
Before we value a single figure, every line has its clause, its notice, its correspondence and its site record in front of it. The duplicated charge is already visible.
To have the deductions already taken answered line by line, see our Contra-Charge Claim service.